Blue Santa for Venezuelan Family awaiting Asylum

***If you already know the story of this family that has been in my life for almost a year, or just want to skip to the Blue Santa request list, scroll to the bottom.***

On Jan 11, 2024, a Spanish speaking woman approached me at the airport, hoping to board my flight with her husband and three sons. But instead of a seat assignment, her ticket said “standby” and she was having trouble understanding why.

In a bolt of intuition, she’d approached me, a late night business traveler who doesn’t look it, but is fluent in Spanish, and asked me to translate. It immediately became clear that the airline employees had no interest in helping her understand if she would be able to board with her 7-year old son, who was ticketed, so I stuck around to make sure things were translated for her.

It was during those short few minutes that I learned… they walked for over 8 months, through 9 countries.

The Godoy- Martinez family are legal asylum seekers from Venezuela.

Dayana, the mother and wife, is one of the most fierce and faithful people I’ve ever met. After repeatedly refusing to forge documentation for a Venezuelan government official asking her to lie about the amount of ration bags that were delivered to her village, she was labeled an enemy of the government. Her house was raided and she was repeatedly threatened that her boys would be taken from her and enlisted. The military used every imaginable tactic to intimidate them, including starving them of rations. Eventually, they decided to escape the threats, leaving behind a $20/month salary and their rations of one bag of rice and beans per month, they sold their modest belongings to pay a trafficking group to get them across the dangerous jungle of Venezuela.

It took them over 8 months of one of the most terrifying and frustrating journeys I’ve ever heard, to reach the US border. Despite seeing many hurt, killed and assaulted along this difficult passage, they made it to US soil. It was then, Dayana was raped by a border agent, on the US side. In one of the most tragic twists of fate, this fact alone is likely to be the most qualifying reason for their family to finally become approved for Asylum, because there are ever changing “temporary protections” for Venezuelans. But only IF, they move through the last step before the next administration follows through on promises to change these rules.

This final step- is to receive a legal work permit. The only thing stopping them is the $250 per person fee.

They pay $1450 for a two bedroom apartment, with nothing but day labor from the Home Depot parking lot and immense prayers.

I became involved with this family, as an Interfaith Minister, as a former consultant to Refugee Resettlement Programs, and as a Mother, totally underestimating how overwhelmed and underprepared the sanctuary cities are. I got involved because Catholic Charities gave them a one-way ticket to another sanctuary city after their first shelter collected 90 days of FEMA funding for them and put them out on the streets of Chicago, in winter, after only 60 days. I became involved because it was such a tangible way to be of service to someone else, and I desperately needed to get out of my own shit.

During my time knowing them, I have been a witness to their journey through shelters that were such abysmal conditions, jail would have been easier. I’ve watched them walk miles to day-labor sites 7 days a week to scrape together what they could each day, eventually finding an apartment for undocumented people and paying for it on whatever work “God sends them” each day. They’ve managed to keep a roof over their heads and most days, food in their bellies for 6 consecutive months without a single benefit from the US government. No food stamps, no housing, no English classes, no social workers or sponsoring volunteers. Their apartment is in a tough neighborhood in Chicago where they must wait for their work permit before they can move, it’s comfortably furnished with free stuff found on the curb, because they are so incredibly resourceful. They’ve never asked me for help, except to translate the next confusing step in a process that seems to be made intentionally difficult.

Manuel, now 8 years old, broke his arm on the journey and will require several surgeries to fix the way it grew back together. He is the sweetest, most loving and cutest rendition of Harry Potter you’ve ever seen in 3rd grade. The older boys spent the whole year enrolled in high school or walking to Home Depot. Mom and Dad are noticeably traumatized but doing a great job keeping the family safe and fed day by day. They are still very much living from one crisis to another. Often times the best thing I can do for them is buy some groceries, or take them to a thrift store for some seasonally appropriate clothes, or spend a half a day with them somewhere that feels outside of the crisis of survival for just a few hours. I see them every few months and try to offer a few hours of normalcy that isn’t wholly focused on surviving, and somehow we’ve all become family.

But I need help supporting them, and they are so close to being able to earn money legally and with four workers in the family, they would become self sufficient very quickly (and probably love to somewhere a bit safer.) I am creating this Blue Santa to see if together, we can get them over the finish line.

Here is what they need:

- $250 per person for 4 people of working age (work permit application fee)

- $700 of their December rent

- Winter clothes! Men’s 32 waist work pants, snow pants, base layers (3 men this size)

- Gloves (work/warm- Men’s L), hats, socks

- Men’s medium shirts, sweatshirts, work clothes

-Men’s work jackets M or L

- Women’s medium warm pants

- Women’s Medium sweaters, sweatshirts and long sleeve

- Shoes and boots: 10.5/41 men’s, 7.5/38 women’s

- Child’s size 8 snow clothes

Here are things they would love/want, but aren’t critical:

-a Nativity Scene

- Games to practice learning English

- Legos or Art supplies (for an 8 year old)

- Prepaid cards usable at the grocery store

- Blankets

-old phones or old tablet devices

— Toiletries

Some of you may be wondering what to believe about border crossers and the process to make sure they are safe to enter the country.

They have:

-Current passports and birth certificates for all members of they family

-Background checks completed in the EL Paso detention center

-Finger prints and photos taken

-Police report and rape kit completed

-Immigration court, 4 times thus far

-Weekly immigration check-in’s

-Asylum application processed

-both school aged boys enrolled and attending

After personally witnessing the treatment they received in two shelters, an airport detention center, a militaristic school that stood a traumatized 8 year old in the corner all day until he wet his pants, and upwards of 15 doctor appointments where they were dismissed, immigration offices that only offer forms in English, renting an apartment without proper jobs or documentation, the lack of social services available in sanctuary cities and the lack of empathy of what they’ve been through by the time they arrive, I feel compelled to show them the other side of our culture here. There is much more to their story that didn’t feel appropriate be shared by me, or in this forum. But my own story has been dramatically changed because of the last year of being invited into their family and their experience. Seeing them risk everything on faith, chose the hell that is being a displaced migrant here- over where their home is, only to live to tell about the kindness of strangers along the way, and be faithful believers in a world that is really not set up for them, has put my own problems in such important perspective.

***If you are feeling powerless in a world full of things we cannot change, this family is one place to see the impact of your love and kindness, instantly.****

If you want to know how to send Holiday gifts directly to the family to put around their 2’ Christmas tree, message me here or text me directly for an address.

funds will be sent to them directly through western union and I will pay the fees so they get every dime.

Happy holidays, friends.