SACRAMENTO, Calif. — They saw themselves in the video that Florida officials offered up as proof of their consent to travel to California, but they said it’s not what it seemed.
They were happy, yes. That part was true.
They had finally made it to America after traveling thousands of miles over the span of three months from their home in Venezuela.
They walked until their feet bled and caught a bus or a train when they could. Sometimes they went days without eating and collapsed with exhaustion.
The young husband and wife had held each other in the jungle, sleeping without even a blanket.
“Members of the group — which also include former residents of Colombia and Guatemala — said they came to California because they were promised that they would be given a home, higher paying jobs and attorneys to help them more quickly obtain permits to work legally.”
They ran out of the rice and tuna they had packed and picked fruit from trees to survive. They cleaned windshields in exchange for donations or food when they traveled through cities.
“There were many moments of desperation and frustration and fear,” the 34-year-old husband said in Spanish in an interview with the L.A. Times on Friday in Sacramento. “But with God, we felt at peace. It was not easy.”
Four migrants recently flown to Sacramento by the state of Florida spoke to the L.A. Times and asked not to be identified, worried that it could impact their upcoming court hearings or put their families who remain in their home countries in danger.
They are among 36 people who arrived on two chartered flights this month, a move that Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken responsibility for as he runs for president and lambastes Democratic immigration policies.
After journeying from Central and South America to escape violence and poverty at home, they have unknowingly landed at the center of a political firestorm in the United States …
