Back in her hometown in the state of Portuguesa, Venezuela, Magnaly Márquez had to make a choice: Buy her 3-year-old son a pair of shoes, or pizza. She didn’t have enough money for both—despite having studied business administration, working in a bank, and juggling side gigs for extra cash. Now, sitting in a charity hospital-turned-migrant shelter in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Márquez’s eyes welled with tears as she recounted her story.
In November, the 30-year-old single mother decided to leave for the United States with her son, Milands, in tow. They trekked across the Darién Gap, a treacherous stretch of jungle at the Panama-Colombia border. The Gap lacks roads and cell service. Criminal groups run amok. Migrants frequently run out of food and water, relying on untreated streams at the risk of illness or severe dehydration.
When I met her in mid-June, Márquez had been waiting in northern Mexico, just across the river from Brownsville, since February. She hopes to seek asylum, which will ultimately require her to prove she faced a form of persecution beyond financial deprivation. Her home country is engulfed in a long-running crisis that is both political and economic.
