“Arepas, arepas” are shouted daily in the center of Ciudad Juárez, when offering one of their country’s traditional foods to the border community and their own countrymen, in order to collect 1,500 pesos monthly. That they are charged in the rented room.
“We’re here, looking for a way to survive to pay for living, we’ve gone out to sell and work in all countries, in force, always on the move,” said Roger Cruz, 28, who The country he left behind is his wife and two children, aged 7 years and 7 months.
His brother-in-law, Orléan Fernández, 27, also left Venezuela three-and-a-half months ago, leaving his wife and two children, ages 2 and 4, with the intention of moving to Pennsylvania, where Roger’s grandparents have lived for 36 years and 40 years. .
The two arrived in Ciudad Juárez 22 days earlier, where they sought work, but lacked documentation proving their temporary stay in Mexico, given the saturation of shelters and the need to pay rent for a room to sleep in. Eventually, he decided to start his own business.
“We live in a rented room in a neighborhood of rebels, they charge us 1,500 pesos a month and 1,500 as a deposit. We are four, we two and two other partners make chicken arepas, ground chicken, shredded meat, sausage with eggs, black beans (beans) with cheese, we make a variety,” Roger commented on the arepas. , a similar Venezuelan dish to Mexican gorditas.
He added that although he also has Mexican customers, it is mainly his own countrymen who consume his products.
“Thank God we have done a great job. We sell in the downtown area, over the bridge to El Paso, we walk a lot. At this stage (pedestrian crossing of Avenida 16 de Septiembre) I really don’t know why they bother us so much – the police -“, he said of the municipal uniformed men who always tell him to keep walking , so the two are heard shouting “arepas, arepas” with a Styrofoam cooler, a bottle of avocado sauce and a plastic bag with a napkin in hand.
After about four months, the hardest thing is being separated from their families, but while they work in the city, they hope to be able to make appointments on the CBP One application, seeking humanitarian exceptions to the United States. For Title 42 to enter.
“We haven’t been successful (end the process at CBP One), we try daily, daily, but it doesn’t give us appointments,” he lamented.
Daniel Villalobos, who takes a job as a welder in front of the cathedral two days after arriving in town, is one of her customers every day, while he also hopes to get an appointment to enter the United States.
He said he reached the border on Wednesday, January 18, where a pastor let him stay at an evangelical church for a few days, and from Friday, the 20th, he began working on the construction of the BRT station.
“I’m a welder and I’m working as a welder, the pastor lends me his motorcycle to commute to work. But the application opens at 7:00 in the morning, and the page is congested because the same time There are thousands of people trying to enter, it slows down at that time, and that’s why we haven’t been able to create a page for placement,” he said.
