We have updated this GoFundMe to support Ramon with rent and continued safe housing. Ramon has reached out to us at a critical moment asking for help with his rent and continued safety. He has regular work as a painter, but has lost substantial income in recent weeks. His employer asked him to stay at home as ICE conducts aggressive sweeps at job sites around the city.

We first met Ramon, 26, in our neighborhood on a Sunday morning. He seemed distressed and appeared to have little in the way of possessions, save for the clothes he was wearing and a torn envelope holding his immigration paperwork. We soon learned that Ramon and his cousin Walter, 26, had walked from outside Maracaibo, Venezuela, to the US-Mexico border—a journey spanning over 2,200 miles across difficult, dangerous terrain through Central America and Mexico—before being detained by U.S. Border Patrol and bussed to New York City. Ramon’s parents passed away, leaving him and his many siblings alone with little to support themselves. The economic situation in Venezuela is so dire in terms of getting basic needs met—food, water, basic employment—that Ramon and Walter, along with thousands of others over the past several years, made the incredibly difficult choice to leave their homes and make the perilous journey to the United States in search of opportunity and a way to support their family.

Walter is also doing well and has found work outside of NY.

Ramon is working with a lawyer and seeking asylum in the US. He has been given a work authorization under the federal government’s Temporary Protected Status that has not expired.

We’re setting $1,000 as the goal for this GoFundMe, and any amount you can contribute will help towards rent.

For privacy and security reasons, we are not posting pictures of Ramon, but know that he is real and deeply grateful. And we are grateful also. Any funds raised over our goal will be donated to the NYC organization Venezuelans and Immigrants Aid, https://vianyc.org/