Venezuelan migrant family — including pregnant mother — turned away from NYC shelter
A young Venezuelan migrant family was left in limbo this week after being bussed to New York City from Texas — only to be told they were “ineligible” for shelter because they lacked proper documentation.
Dailin Rojas, who is 6 months pregnant, told The Post she was given the run-around after being told her family didn’t have the required documentation to allow them to stay at a homeless shelter in Jamaica, Queens.
Despite having stayed there for several weeks already, a distressed Rojas, her husband Johandre Merchan and their 3-year-old son were ordered to start the entire application process again.
“We were shocked. It’s not easy here,” the frustrated husband told The Post. “I was thinking a better life, better treatment, but it’s not easy.”
Rojas and her family are among a growing number of migrants forced to contend with shelter ineligibility because they can’t provide the documentation – such as past housing history or proof they are a family unit – that is usually required to be admitted to a city shelter.
But Legal Aid Society lawyer Kathryn Kliff said instances like this shouldn’t be happening in the first place due to a citywide policy that protects asylum seekers lacking those documents.
Kliff said a shelter “staff training issue or a lack of attention to the asylum policy” was likely to blame for the unnecessary stress being put on migrants in those situations.
“They should be following the policy,” Kliff told The Post. “They are clearly asylum seekers. They have a fear of returning,” she added, speaking generally about the migrants arriving in the city.
“I’m sure it’s very scary … it sows a lot of fear,” she said of any migrant family being turned away.
Robert Gonzalez, an activist with the Venezuelan Alliance for Community Support, came across Rojas and her husband as they were desperately trying to reapply at the city’s Prevention Assistance and Temporary Housing Office (PATH) this week.
The family had arrived at the US border on July 11 after fleeing their native Venezuela a month earlier. Rojas said she only found out she was pregnant midway through their trek.
“I suffered. I was depressed. I had to carry my son. I never let him walk. My husband was sick. He had diarrhea. We wanted to get to America as soon as possible,” Rojas said of their rough journey.
After spending several days in US Customs and Border detention, the family were loaded onto a bus in San Antonio en route to the Port Authority in Manhattan.
They arrived in the Big Apple on July 17 and were given MetroCards to make their way to the PATH office in the Bronx where they slept on the floor for two days, Gonzalez said.
“That was wrong,” Gonzalez said. “They let a pregnant mother and her husband and 3- year-old sleep on the floor.”
The family was then sent to the Jamaica homeless shelter on July 19 where they have been ever since — until their situation was upended.
Another two busloads of migrants arrived at Manhattan’s Port Authority Friday morning — adding to the hundreds that have been shipped off by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as part of an ongoing political spat over President Biden’s border policies.
Mayor Eric Adams has previously insisted that all migrants would be welcome in the Big Apple — regardless if they have the correct documentation.
Gonzalez said the family’s plight was in direct contrast to Adams’ stance.
“What the mayor and the commissioner are saying is not true. The story where they are welcomed here and the story at the shelter is different,” he told The Post.
“They don’t have any documents. They took them at the border. All they have is the papers they got from immigration. They are on parole right now.”
City Hall didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Venezuelan family’s situation was only rectified late Thursday after Gonzalez enlisted legal help.
Meanwhile, Kliff, the Legal Aid lawyer, told The Post it has become a growing trend for migrants to be told they are ineligible.
“We raise the cases as we find them. We raise them with the city and they fix them,” Kliff said.
“I usually encounter a couple of families. This week, I’ve been made aware of three or four. They’re popping up with significant frequency.”
“I’m sure there are other clients we haven’t met that are having this issue.”
