Venezuelan exiles seek hope

By Rocio Granados - La Voz Catolica

DORAL | They were searching for hope. And to find it, they went to their church.

“The place where we are gathering is key because we are in the house of God,” said Cristina Belisario, one of almost 1,000 people, many of Venezuelan origin, who gathered Aug. 23 at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish for a meeting with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.

“I hope it will be a productive meeting, that we’ll be able to see something specific, clear and convincing, and that we will be able to have some sort of hope,” said Belisario, who was born in Venezuela and now directs the Cantar de los Cantares Pilgrim Choir.

With their music, the choir enlivened the long hours the crowd spent waiting at the church while the vice president met privately, at the parish hall next door, with opposition leaders and people who have lost family members to the Venezuelan government’s repression.

“I come to support my Venezuelan compatriots who remain in Venezuela, and are going through many difficulties. There is hunger, there is poverty, there aren’t any medicines. Our people need international help,” said Rosa Mago, a Venezuelan who arrived in Miami a few weeks ago.

She and her husband have to leave Venezuela to obtain medicines for her mother. Not that long ago, her brother died from a brain hemorrhage due to lack of medicine.

“People are looking through the garbage for food. This has never been seen before in my country. I am here to support and also to look for international support. We know that those people have the power and the weapons. On the other hand, teenagers go to the streets with rocks, with a flag, and they are assassinated. The police are supposed to protect the people, not kill them. It’s unfortunate,” said Mago.

 

International help

For Morela Aberrevere as well, a Venezuelan and longtime parishioner at Our Lady of Guadalupe, the solution for Venezuela is in the hands of the international community.

“We need every country to join in and help us and I believe that today we will receive a great hope. The Virgin of Guadalupe and our Lord Jesus Christ have to listen to the Venezuelan community,” said Aberrevere.

“What we Venezuelans have to go through is truly hard to live with because we had it all but unfortunately, we have made mistakes,” said Nayrobi Peñalosa, a member of another church with an abundance of Venezuelan parishioners, St. Katharine Drexel in Weston. “The responsibility is ours, those of us who were living well, because we didn’t realize what was really going on with (most) people.”

Now, she says, what exists in Venezuela “is an empire of terror, of thefts, of murderers. And you hear that in the news, but to live it is worse,” said Peñalosa, who recently lost a cousin. He was killed when someone tried to steal his cellphone.

 

Requesting TPS

The meeting with Pence also was helpful in that it allowed some Venezuelan organizations to request the legalization of hundreds of Venezuelans who do not have legal status in the U.S.

“Venezuelans who are here are in need of TPS, to be able to work freely in this country, since we had to leave our country because of this murderous and criminal government,” said Elida García, member of VEPEX, an organization of exiled Venezuelans.

Temporary Protected Status is a benefit the Department of Homeland Security can grant to citizens of a foreign country due to conditions in their home country, such as natural disasters, armed conflicts, or epidemics.

According to Carmen Giménez, a representative of Promocíon TPS, a group that advocates for the legalization of Venezuelans, the people who receive this benefit would be able to obtain work permits, driver’s licenses and social security numbers, and would be able to travel. TPS would grant legal status to many who overstayed their U.S. visas but “cannot go back to Venezuela (because) they won’t be safe.”

Approximately 150,000 Venezuelans are living in the U.S. with irregular migratory status, according to Giménez. Granting TPS could benefit between 40,000 and 80,000 Venezuelans.

“We are in the church of our protective mother, so, if it’s about protection, who else other than her? And if this turns out positively, it will be because of her divine grace and her mercy for the people of Venezuela,” said Giménez.

“Mother, let there be a future of hope for Venezuela and its people!” said Archbishop Thomas Wenski at the start of the presentation where a number of government officials spoke. Vice President Pence was preceded by Congressman Mario Díaz Balart, Sen. Marco Rubio and Florida Governor Rick Scott.

 

Promise of freedom

“I believe with all my heart that Venezuela will be free,” Pence told the hundreds of Venezuelans who anxiously awaited his message.

He promised that the Trump Administration would not stop until Venezuela was once again free and democratic, and he also called on Latin American countries to continue supporting that objective.

After listening to Pence’s message, Peñalosa said she felt encouraged. “Truly we have to have hope and be patient. Everything happens at the appointed time, everything that is happening is leading toward that objective which is freedom for Venezuela.” 

Carlos Mesa, a catechist at Our Lady of Guadalupe, said something similar. “I feel the unrestricted support of the government of this country in looking for a change in Venezuela’s political situation to establish freedom, and for elections to be held which is what the people of Venezuela want.”

 

Military intervention

But others asked for more.

Given that the Venezuelan situation is affecting other South American countries, “it’s time for the United States to help us, for there to be a humanitarian military intervention,” said Rafael Angarita, director of the Venezuelan Coalition in South Florida.

“For me, Pence’s message was good, and most likely the American government is trying all peaceful means first, to avoid interference that no one likes,” said Jenny Ávila. But she was holding a banner asking for military intervention.

“What we want is a military intervention right away. People actually trained to take out those guys, who are very armed and very mean. We can’t do it alone,” said Ávila, a member of AMVEX, the Association of Venezuelan Mothers and Women, and of DIREVE, Diaspora for the Resistance in Venezuela.

“Elections do not take out a dictatorship. We need a military intervention now because we don’t have weapons. Our only weapons are the strength with which we go out to protest,” said Gisel Barrios, 21, a member of the Resistance, young men and women who go out daily to protest.

“We’re tired of so much dictatorship, of going hungry, of our family members having to leave the country, of not being able to find medicine, of young men and women like me who need to leave in search of a future outside Venezuela,” said Barrios.