…Oil workers flee Venezuela’s crisis for a better life***
Patience was wearing thin Thursday for some of the 1,600
Central American migrants spending their fourth day at an improvised shelter in
the Mexican border town of Piedras Negras, across from Eagle Pass, Texas.
Facing a long wait and a somewhat harsh welcome in Piedras
Negras, in the northern state of Coahuila, some migrants asked to return to
their home countries; the largest single group of those returning were from
Honduras.
A large police force stood guard outside the unused factory
complex where the shelter is located, about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the
border. A chain-link fence rings the perimeter of the shelter.
Federal and state officials confirmed that migrants without
Mexican humanitarian visas weren’t being allowed to leave the shelter, and
those allowed out temporarily were taken in vans under police escort in groups
of about a dozen to a nearby store to buy supplies, or to the U.S. border to
file asylum claims.
U.S. officials are “metering” asylum claims,
accepting only about a dozen per day because they say the facilities at Eagle
Pass are at capacity.
Some migrants, especially those from Nicaragua, were willing
to wait, trusting their asylum claims would be approved.
A Nicaraguan computer engineer said he left because of
repression by the government of President Daniel Ortega. He didn’t want to give
his name because he feared reprisals against his wife and children, who remain
in Nicaragua.
“We don’t have a problem crossing to the other side,
Nicaraguans are very well received in the United States, a lot of people have
gone over and have gotten asylum,” said the engineer.
He said he also didn’t mind being kept inside the shelter.
“We have to wait because we aren’t familiar with this
place,” he said through the chain-link fence. “We know it’s dangerous
because of the gangs and the kidnappings. I feel okay here inside, because I
don’t know anybody on the outside, anyway.”
Previous caravans had travelled to the border city of
Tijuana, but tensions there apparently played a role in this group’s decision
to go to Eagle Pass.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security vowed that the
“lawless caravan” would not be allowed in and has beefed up security
at the relatively small border crossing.
In the meantime, Nieves Ribullen, a Venezuelan oil
worker sick of struggling to get by as his country falls apart, is betting it
all on far-away Kurdistan to give his family a better life.
Over the years he’s watched dozens of co-workers abandon
poverty wages and dangerous working conditions at the rundown complex of
refineries in Venezuela’s Punto Fijo for jobs in far-flung places like Kuwait,
Angola and Chile.
Now it’s his turn. Leaving his wife and three children
behind, he’ll soon ship out to Kurdistan, where he expects to earn more than
$3,500 a month — a fortune compared to the less than $20 he brings home monthly
in Venezuela.
“I only earn enough to buy a kilo (2 pounds) of meat and one chicken each month,” Ribullen said. “We’re in chaos.”
ABC with additional report from Fox News
