How migrants flown into Martha’s Vineyard came to call it home

On a sprawling estate of Martha’s Vineyard not far from the coast, Deici Cauro adapted a baseball cap to keep the scorching sun at bay. She was crouching down to pull weeds with her bare hands when a familiar voice called from across the yard.

“Pots!” her employer called and she beckoned Mrs. Cauro to follow her to another garden nearby.

“¿Vamos?” Mrs. Cauro replied in Spanish, wondering if they had decided to move.

“Sí, vamos, I guess, whatever that means,” her boss replied, causing both women to laugh heartily.

When Ms. Cauro fled Venezuela last summer, she never imagined she would one day work and live on a prosperous island south of Cape Cod, surrounded by boats and mansions of the kind she’d only seen in movies.

It’s been nine months since the Florida government, led by Governor Ron DeSantis, chartered two flights from Texas that picked up Ms. Cauro and 48 other newly arrived migrants and dropped them off at Martha’s Vineyard, a liberal enclave that until then had little experience of the first hand with the wave of migration on the US-Mexico border.

The political move — repeated this month, when Florida officials arranged two additional flights of migrants from Texas, this time bound for California — was an attempt to force Democratic leaders miles away to deal with a wave of migration that swept states along the border. has hit. . The trips left many Venezuelans confused and alarmed. Some were told they were headed to Boston or Seattle, where jobs, aid, and housing would be plentiful.

But neither was the destination; it was Martha’s Vineyard, and it was the end of the busy summer season when vacationers retreated to offices and schools. There were no jobs and no shelter for them. Volunteers housed the newcomers in a local church and arranged transportation.

Within days, most of the migrants had left, heading to other parts of Massachusetts and to places like New York, Washington, and Michigan—cities better equipped than a small island to settle people who had arrived with little or nothing of their own.

However, it turned out that not all of them left.

Ms. Cauro is one of at least four migrants who have quietly remained on the island, forging links with a community that has opened all doors. Mrs. Cauro, 25, works as a landscape gardener. Her brother, Daniel, 29, and her cousin, Eliud Aguilar, 28, found jobs in painting and roofing.

They first stayed in the homes of Martha’s Vineyard residents who invited them, and then began to earn enough money for a two-bedroom home, bringing the four of them in $1,000 a month each. They have bicycles to ride around town.

“I didn’t even know where Martha’s Vineyard was. And now I feel welcomed by everyone here. I work, make friends and this is my home now,” Mrs. Cauro said with a broad smile. “This is home now. I don’t want to leave.”

The Florida-sponsored flights came as the Republican governors of Texas and Arizona turned thousands of migrants away from the border, straining support systems in cities like New York, Washington and Chicago.

Many of the 49 migrants who flew to Martha’s Vineyard are still struggling. Some have not yet received work permits and many still live in shelters and cannot afford permanent housing.

One of them, a 42-year-old man named Wilson, who fled Venezuela after leaving an armed group there, lives in a shelter in a suburb of Boston. He hoped to open a restaurant or remodeling business, but is currently working odd jobs and “doing what he can,” he said.

“We were 49 migrants and we have 49 different stories,” he said. “I want to achieve the American dream like everyone else.”

The four migrants who managed to stay on the island have also faced challenges. Ms Cauro said she still found it difficult to trust strangers after the very disturbing feeling of being set adrift by people who she now believes used her and her relatives as political pawns.

She said it was important to her to pay her own bill and not become a burden to the community that welcomed her. Her employer, a woman in her 60s who declined to be named because she employed someone without a work permit, said Ms Cauro felt like part of the family.

Mrs. Cauro understood enough to nod her head. “We came here to work in any job, no matter how difficult. We are just happy to live here.”

Life in ‘La Isla’, as the migrants call it, feels very much like the new life they imagined. But getting there was a huge challenge. Ms. Cauro and her relatives, facing an oppressive government and economic collapse in Venezuela, had left for the United States a month before reaching the border.

Her brother, Daniel, had left behind a wife and two children, Daniela, 8, and Reynaldo, 2. They traversed the Darien Gap, a treacherous strip of jungle that connects South and Central America. In Mexico, the group hopped on La Bestia, a northbound freight train network where many migrants have lost limbs and even their lives.

When they reached the Texas border, Mr. Aguilar remembered losing sight of people in his group and being swept away by the strong currents of the Rio Grande. “It was so hard to watch them sink to the bottom of the river,” said Mr. Aguilar.

The group eventually crossed over to the United States near Eagle Pass, Texas, and found shelter at a shelter in San Antonio. But after the five-night limit, they stood outside, tired and hungry. “We were desperate,” Mr Cauro said.

After several days in early September, they met a woman named Perla, who handed them McDonald’s gift cards and offered them a hotel and free flights to “Washington or Oregon,” where the woman said they would find work and housing, the migrants recall. himself. .

But 15 minutes before their plane was due to land, they said something wasn’t right. Mr. Cauro and his group were handed red binders with a cover that read, “Massachusetts Welcomes You.”

Ms. Cauro and her brother said they were in shock and felt “like cattle” when they were dropped off at a high school field in Edgartown, one of the six towns that make up Martha’s Vineyard, and told to knock on doors . “Some people passed out and had panic attacks,” recalled Mr. Cauro itself.

Father Chip Seadale of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church was out of town when the flights landed, but called immediately when he heard what had happened. “If they have nowhere to stay, let’s just put them in the church,” he told his colleagues.

The fire brigade and volunteers from the Salvation Army set up beds in the church and local residents poured in with clothes, food and money. Father Seadale said a woman rode her bicycle to the church and presented a check for $10,000.

There was generosity from across the country, he said, pointing to a wall near the church filled with letters from supporters. An envelope addressed to “The Church They Brought The Immigrents To” managed to get to the correct address. An attached letter read: “Thank you for treating the migrants like human beings.”

“The community came together,” Father Seadale said. Whatever Mr. DeSantis’ intent was, he said, “he raised a level of awareness and consciousness.” To this day, when I say I’m from Martha’s Vineyard, people congratulate me on the way we handled it.”

Not everyone welcomed the newcomers with open arms.

A longtime resident, Angela Cywinski, said the situation put the community in a difficult position as it tried to accommodate people who could not legally be hired in restaurants or hotels. Most of the migrant workers on the island, she said, have spent the necessary time and money trying to obtain legal status. Ms Cywinski said she knows migrants from Brazil who have spent up to $60,000 and waited years to obtain a visa to legally live on the island. “It’s not fair for people to cross the line,” she said.

Ms. Cauro and others had to work under the table until their work permits were approved, which usually takes several months as part of the asylum process.

Rachel Self, an immigration attorney who has worked with the migrants, said the Venezuelans work hard and pay their own bill.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, Mrs. Self arrived at the house where the Venezuelans lived, on a quiet road. They played salsa music and cooked caldo de res, a red meat soup common in Venezuela. Over dinner they laughed together and made plans to visit the house of the “abogada” – the lawyer, as they have come to know her – and also the nearby beach made famous by the movie “Jaws”.

Martha’s Vineyard is not the place they imagined, they said, but it has become the place where they hope to put down roots. Mr Cauro said he would like to get his wife and two children out of Venezuela once his own legal status was secured.

When his family calls him on FaceTime, he tells them to be patient. He hasn’t seen them in a year, but he promises it won’t be long now.

His 2-year-old son, Reynaldo, wearing a straw hat that he rarely takes off, is always asking when he’ll be home.

‘I’m already home’, Mr. Cauro replies. One day, he reminds his son, he will be at his house too.