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Geovanna Tonato has been looking for a job in New York City for more than a month, but with an asylum claim as a child, her five-year-old son to look after and tens of thousands of people in the same position, it has become more difficult. challenges than anticipated since he left his home in Quito, Ecuador, last September.
“My mother was sick, and so was my father. So I said to myself, ‘I better go, get a job and I’ll help you.’ But I’m worse than before,” she said recently in tears after wandering around New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal, in midtown Manhattan, for several hours.
In Quito, Tonato works collecting bus tickets from passengers, which provides money to cover his rent. Now he can’t work because he’s waiting for a work permit to be issued — which could take years.
“I feel impotent because I can’t do anything here,” he said.
Tonato, who did not want to be photographed, is one of the asylum seekers who go in and out of the bus terminal every day, seeking help from the National Guard with shelter and food.
Officers have been stationed there since New York Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency in October 2022. The crisis began after Texas Governor Greg Abbott. decided to seek asylum by bus to New York last August after they cross the southern US border.
In the past year, New York City has taken in 50,000 asylum seekers, 60 percent of whom live in the city’s network of shelters. Others live with friends and family, or alone.
Gossip can lead to a desire to cross boundaries
Power Malu is the executive director of Artist-Athlete-Activist, one of two grassroots organizations that help asylum seekers at the bus terminal. They say their moves across borders and country lines are often informed by rumors and success stories told by others.
“Unfortunately, some people will not have the same experience as advertised,” he said. “This is a community that shares information through WhatsApp, and it spreads quickly [that] you can’t even get everyone in time to give them the other side of the story.
Helluva story27:05NYC to Roxham Road
When Craig Desson visited New York City a few weeks ago, gate 26 at the Port Authority bus terminal was busy late into the night. There the migrants wait for the bus to Plattsburgh NY, then to Roxham Road. It’s a journey thousands of desperate migrants make, all seeking asylum in Canada. The migrants who boarded the bus had no idea what was waiting for them at the end of their journey. But he also didn’t know he was among those crossing the Roxham Road into Canada. This week, producer Craig Desson boarded the bus at gate 26, and talked to migrants at the end of their journey to what they hope is a better life.
Until recently, some migrants arrived at the terminal to catch a bus to Plattsburgh, NY, has a city reticketing program, to try their luck in Canada by crossing the illegal border on Roxham Road and claiming asylum on the other side.
New changes made to Safe Third Country Agreement by the Canadian and US governments have ruled out the possibility of most migrants seeking asylum that way.
According to Malu, the main motivator is the rumor that work permits are issued faster in Canada than in the United States. But in reality, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has handle own backlog issues and work permit delays.
“There are still people who travel to other places when they hear about work, because that’s the most important thing to come here, is to try not to rely on the system. [and] hand it over,” said Malu.
He said the irregular closure of the border on Roxham Road, south of Montreal, has told some of the stories told by people migrating to Canada — only to find it more isolating or challenging than they thought it would be. weather or language barriers.
“All these things have not been discussed and have not been raised,” said Malu.
New York released a blueprint for handling the crisis
Last year, more than 44,000 people entered Quebec from the US through irregular border crossings, many on Roxham Road. At the same time, nearly double that number made the trip in the opposite direction to New York state, although the majority were turned back to Canada by US Customs and Border Protection.
Based on the conversations they had, Malu said some of them returned to the U.S. after failing to settle in Canada.
Tonato had actually considered migrating to Canada, but now he heard about a job in Spring Valley, about an hour’s drive north of New York City. He eventually stopped because it would be too difficult for the teenage girls, ages 11 and 16, who were still in Ecuador, to meet him there.
“I have heard [in New York City] there is work, but I have to wait until the summer, which is here in the summer is very good, “he said. “But if I can have a job now and someone to help me out with my son, I will . Because I don’t have the will to work.”
Last month, the mayor’s office released a comprehensive report, called The Road Forward, laying out a blueprint for handling New York City’s asylum seeker crisis, including launching a pilot program focused on training asylum seekers while they wait for work permits.
The city will also create a 24/7 arrivals center to replace current operations at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, as well as a dedicated Asylum Seeker Operations Office.
Competition for cash jobs in New York City is fierce, said Gabriel Echevarria, another asylum seeker from Quito who moved to the U.S. with his six-year-old son.
Faced with an ‘unprecedented crisis,’ New York City pays to bus migrants south. Although the mayor has said the city is not helping migrants cross the border into Canada, the Quebec government is concerned some may pass through irregular entry points such as those on Roxham Road.
Echevarria wakes up every day at about 5 a.m. to look for work. He used to work in construction back home and has been able to transfer his skills to New York, but he found out the hard way how vulnerable asylum seekers can be when they are desperate to find work.
“[Employers] make you happy and pay day. Then they pay you at the end of two days. Then they say, ‘You know, we’ll pay you at the end of the week,'” he said, adding that some employers just stopped coming back to him. “The money is gone, it’s very difficult. the situation here.”
Between hope and regret
Back at the bus terminal, there are people who have been out since morning looking for cash work, a break from the cold. He left Quito, the capital of Ecuador, when a local gang opened fire on a grocery store after refusing to pay 25 percent of its sales.
A few meters away, a couple of teenagers, also from Ecuador, sat with a baby. The boy’s pinky finger had been cut clean from his hand. That’s what happened when he refused to join the local gang, or gang, wants to have a music career instead.
Desperation and fear of what happened in the past motivated people to seek asylum more than the promise of what lies ahead. Often, they have no plans to get beyond filing an asylum claim – which can take up to a year.
“It’s more important to make sure you’re going to be supported where you’re going, rather than just taking that leap,” Malu said. “Because many times these dreams or things that are sold are not true.”
The first time Tonato regretted his decision to leave Ecuador, he walked through the jungles of Panama. He thought it would be a one-day trek, but he spent more than three days carrying his suitcase while carrying his son’s clothes on top of his head, to protect him from the mud and rivers he crossed.
“I would say to myself, ‘If it’s so hard here, how about there [in the U.S.]? No, that’s where I’ll have everything, I’ll be able to,'” Tonato recalled. “Why didn’t I go back?”
Standing at the bus terminal, he kept oscillating between hope and regret.
“My daughter said, ‘Mommy, you’ve made a bad decision to be here [in Ecuador], at least we are all together. Even though sometimes we don’t eat, we are the same,’” said Tonato with tears running down his cheeks.
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