EDGARTOWN, Mass. — Earlier this month, Eliomar Aguero swam across the border between the United States and Mexico with seven other people. The 30-year-old had been traveling from Venezuela for two months through 11 other countries on foot, by bus and by train.
At the same time, Katrina Lima, 42, a real estate agent on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, was in the middle of her usual routine: jogging, working, dinner with friends. I looked forward to autumn, a time when the holidays pile up and the island becomes even brighter.
Earlier this week, these two lives intersected in an unlikely chapter in America’s bitter immigration debate. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) chartered two planes to fly a group of migrants from Texas to this tiny Massachusetts island, which serves as a summer retreat for the liberal elite.
The point, he and other Republican officials have said, was to draw attention to the growing number of migrant arrivals and make Democratic-led states share the burden of caring for them. Democrats denounced the flights as a stunt that used human beings as political pawns.
But for Agüero and Lima, the political fights were far away. He never imagined he could end up in a place like Martha’s Vineyard. Lima never expected such desperate journeys would lead them to her island, but when they did, she jumped in to help.
Later, some of the migrants told him that it turned out to be a stroke of good luck — a stroke of luck — that they had landed there.
Scrutiny is mounting over DeSantis’ use of state funds for migrant flights
On Friday morning, Lima helped mark names as the nearly 50 migrants boarded buses that would take them from the church where they had spent two nights to a ferry bound for the mainland. From there, they would be transported to a military base on Cape Cod.
Now they had full bags and new cell phones. Many wore long-sleeve purple Martha’s Vineyard High School T-shirts. As the migrants bid farewell to local volunteers who had provided them with food and shelter, many in the group wept. Seeing them leave, Lima also cried.
“You just hope they land where they’re supposed to,” he said. “And that they meet good people along the way.”
Aguero made a peace sign with his fingers as he boarded the bus. “Thank you all,” he said in Spanish. “Without these people here, I don’t know where we’d be.”
He had woken before 7 that morning, his second full night of sleep after weeks of staying small. After the initial shock of landing not in Boston, Washington, DC or New York, as most migrants had expected, Aguero began to relax. The island was beautiful, he was safe and so was his wife, Maria. After two months of danger, he could breathe.
Agüero spent his life in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. The economic crisis and political unrest that gripped the country pushed almost the entire population into poverty, including his family. Millions have fled. Aguero also began to look for an outlet.
There was one, but it was dangerous. Aguero and his wife left Venezuela in July hoping to reach the United States. For weeks, they had nowhere to sleep. At one point, they were sent from Chile to Colombia. From there, they traveled throughout Central America. Finally, after riding a notoriously dangerous train through Mexico, they reached the Rio Grande.
He and Maria knew how to swim and believed they would make it. They tied up with the others in the group, waded into the murky waters and made it safely ashore. They were now in the United States, but they had no money, no clothes, no phone.
Aguero and his wife were eventually taken by immigration agents to San Antonio, where they were reunited with Aguero’s brother Rafael, 23, who had started his journey north a few weeks earlier. The pair spent 72 hours in a migrant aid center before hitting the streets, where they joined Rafael, who was scraping together cash to buy food by doing whatever jobs he could find.
A blonde haired woman approached the trio on the streets of Sant Antoni and introduced herself as “Perla”. She asked if they needed help. He offered them a hotel room while he made plans to take them elsewhere. Days later, Aguero, Maria and Rafael boarded a plane to an unknown destination.
He only learned where they were going when the pilot came over the loudspeaker announcing that they would soon arrive at Martha’s Vineyard.
As Aguero’s plane was landing, Lima was at his computer for an afternoon filled with email correspondence, followed by a Zoom meeting. When the meeting was over, he rushed out the door to meet a group of friends for dinner at 19 Raw, an oyster bar in nearby Edgartown.
Lima was born in New York to Bolivian immigrant parents. When he was growing up, his family sometimes vacationed on Martha’s Vineyard. Lima’s older sister, a chef, later settled there, as did Lima, joining a community of about 20,000 year-round residents. Seven years ago, she began volunteering with the local homeless shelter.
When dinner was over, Lima finally looked at her phone. He saw text messages asking if he could help interpret for a group of migrants who had arrived at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, which was around the corner from the restaurant.
She went straight. The voluntary effort was in full swing. The first man he spoke to began to tell him his story. He had walked most of the way through Central America. He took a freight train notorious for danger and violence, known as The Beast, through Mexico. He faced hunger and corrupt officials and gangs.
That first night was spent trying to reassure people who didn’t understand where they were, Lima said. He tried to let them know that they were in good hands, but also that they were free to go if they wanted to.
He returned the next morning at 6:30. It didn’t matter that I had to work, I wanted to show the migrants that they were welcome. He spent the next 15 hours there, helping manage an influx of volunteers, donors and journalists. She started making an Excel spreadsheet of what people had offered to donate: blankets, spare rooms, books, diapers, legal aid, therapy.
In the evening, he took an empty gray folding chair next to him and invited the migrants to talk about what they had been through. He heard about people being robbed and cheated and saw his friends struggle to survive. Many had started the journey with more people. Some were kidnapped or drowned or died of dehydration.
From the moment he heard about the arrival of the migrants, Lima had been on the move. “Then you have moments where you hear the stories,” he said. These are “heart stopping moments”.
Friday morning started with breakfast served by a nearby golf course. Meanwhile, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) had arranged for voluntary transportation to Joint Base Cape Cod, a military base that is designated as an emergency shelter. The state has said it will provide migrants with food, as well as access to health care and legal aid.
Lima had only spoken briefly with Aguero and his family. On Friday, she noticed his name as she approached the bus and hugged him. He spent the rest of the morning helping to clean the church: stripping the beds, emptying the fridge, collecting water bottles. In the early afternoon he had already returned home and opens his laptop.
Aguero got on the bus. In her hand was a new cell phone provided by a local social services organization. Less than half an hour later, the buses arrived at Vineyard Haven Harbor. The sky was a clear blue and the water was dotted with sailboats. “This is beautiful,” said Aguero, pointing to the goal.
On the ferry to the mainland, Aguero and his brother were in high spirits, taking videos as the boat passed through the water. The two brothers stood side by side and looked at the sea.
The waters seemed friendlier now than when Aguero had landed at the airport two days earlier. He still didn’t know exactly where they were going. Some of his fellow migrants had learned from the volunteers that they would be staying at a military base. They didn’t know what that would mean, how long they would be there, or how safe they would be. On his long trips to the United States, military officials had not always been kind.
Aguero was not nervous about what was happening, he said, because he was in America. Even with all the confusion of the last few days, everything would turn out fine.
Rosenzweig-Ziff reported from Edgartown, Massachusetts. Slater reported from Williamstown, Massachusetts.