Leaving Venezuela: ‘The only option for us was the United States’

Photo illustration by Max Herman/Borderless Magazine. Photos by Max Herman/Borderless Magazine and Efrain Soriano for Borderless Magazine. Map from Canva.

This story was a collaboration between the Investigative Project on Race and Equity and Borderless Magazine. Read our investigation into Favorite Healthcare Staffing.

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More than 50,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago on buses and planes over the last two years as part of an effort to pressure Democrats to enact stricter immigration policies. 

Most of these migrants have come from Venezuela, fleeing the country’s economic and political crisis, and crossed the United States-Mexico border to seek asylum. More than seven million Venezuelans have left their country since 2014. 

Borderless Magazine and the Investigative Project on Race and Equity spent months speaking to migrants in Chicago as part of our investigation into a company charged with taking care of them in city-funded shelters.

Here are some of their stories.