It’s 10 in the morning and Johan Ortiz, migrant Venezuelanhe’s been working for a couple of hours now. His cell phone rings and suggests addresses for three, five, four dollars. On a motorcycle, he goes up and down the streets of the capital of the United States, collecting food and delivering it to homes and offices.
On a day like this, after delivering an order, some men started yelling at him, calling him a criminal: “Venezuelans are all thieves.”
During an election year in which the xenophobic rhetoric of the former president and Republican candidate Donald Trump has monopolized part of the speech, migrants and community leaders in Washington assure EFE that they feel an atmosphere of “discrimination“.
Ortiz arrived in the capital from Venezuela in 2023 and at this time he claims to have had meetings with people who wanted to “humiliate him for being Venezuelan“.
These experiences, he says, have even led him to question his plans for future: left two children in Venezuela -whom he supports financially- and hopes that they will also go to the US to reunite as a family.
“My fear is that, bringing my children here and having them face the rejection of the people; what I have experienced, I don’t want them to experience,” emphasizes Ortiz, who supplements his income with a job part time in a restaurant.
Hundreds of migrants South Americans – mostly Colombians and Venezuelans – have settled in Washington in the last two years, coinciding with an increase in migration across the border with Mexico.
Although there are no official figures, community leaders estimate that there are more than 6,000. Many have opted for job as a delivery person because of its flexibility and because it allows them to start making money quickly. In motorcycles, they have made a space for themselves in the city.
In Washington there are more than 35,000 workers registered in applications of home transportation, which generated more than 1.1 billion dollars to the economy local in 2022, according to a trade association that represents those companies.
“You come to work”
The incident that Ortiz describes is part of what more than half a dozen migrants consulted by EFE describe as a “discrimination general”.
“It’s a little angry. Sometimes it’s the same Latino people who tell us that we come to harm the country, when in reality we come to work,” José Guerra, 19, who delivers homes, works part-time in a restaurant and takes English classes four days a week.
When he came of age he decided that “he had no future“in his native Venezuela and he emigrated alone to the United States via the dangerous Darien route. He entered the country with an appointment from the CBP One application, which allows him to appear at a port of entry on the southern border. His entire family is still in Venezuela and he supports them financially.
Guerra acknowledges having heard the comments of Trump about the migrantsparticularly the Venezuelans, whom he calls “criminals.”
The young man shares some ideas: “There are good and bad Venezuelans. I say that if one deserves the deportation It is because of others and not because one does bad things.
The Republican candidate has promised that, if he wins on November 5, he will carry out mass deportations of migrants and will eliminate both CBP One and the humanitarian parole programs known as “parole” (for Cuba, VenezuelaNicaragua and Haiti).
Dilver, Guerra’s compatriot who asks to hide his last name because of his status migratorysays that as a delivery driver he is treated “disrespectfully” because of his origin and for not being fluent in English.
“Sometimes I feel like I want to disappear. You are not here because you want to, but out of necessity,” says the young man sitting on his motorcycle while waiting for another order.
Diana Fula, community leader, considers that migrants suffer in the streets a “clear example of the narratives of hate Trump“: “They do not recognize humanity in the other, but as something that comes to harm.”
Washington police this month opened a investigation for an attack prejudice hate against a delivery man Venezuelan and, so far this year, 30% of the complaints for this type of crime have been due to ethnic or national origin prejudices.
A gap in the economy local
Mario Cristaldo, director of the United Workers labor organization, points out that the job of delivery men motorcycle riding is a “new phenomenon” in Washington. Users are “satisfied,” he highlights, because the speed of services has increased.
For José Solano, who arrived in the capital three months ago, it is a job hard and ungrateful.
“Under a flood of water, with risk on the roads, we bring our services to their homes and businesses,” says the Venezuelan 44 years old, who sends money monthly to his three daughters. “We demand respect. Thanks to us the economy of the US grows”.
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