By: Anna Chuang

Several months ago, 26-year-old Johnson Coronel and his brother left Venezuela for the U.S. to seek asylum. They ended up in a severely crowded New York City shelter. Officials started to bus migrants from the shelter to different parts of the community so the shelter wouldn’t be packed. Although some cities welcomed the migrants, others were unwelcoming and hostile towards the arrivals.

Coronel left Venezuela because the government was becoming very corrupt and violent. According to NPR, he said, “It’s a lot of instability [here in New York]. But the situation in Venezuela has gotten impossible. You can’t walk down the street without a government official shaking you down for money every couple of blocks. We just want to work and live in peace.” The corruption in the Venezuelan government is due to nepotism and a great oil discovery which led to a lot of mismanagement in the country.

Coronel has already stayed in two shelters in Texas, not even a week in Boston, and then he came to a shelter in New York City, and now he is being bused to Albany. Albany is a sanctuary city, so it has been mostly welcoming to new arrivals like Coronel. But some towns in Albany, like Colonie, have been uninviting. Peter Crummey, the town’s supervisor, was infuriated when he saw a bus that held 24 migrants come into his town. As stated in the article by NPR, Crummey says, “The federal government has created chaos in our country, by not responding and making a plan for these folks. The solution lies at the feet of the federal government.” He blames the Biden administration and Congress for not giving enough guidance and support to these migrants.

Now, migrants fear getting deported and as a result they do not ask for help. All they wanted was to work and have a peaceful life, instead of being forced to live it on the edge of a cliff.