They waited for years to get cleared to come to the U.S. Now, Central Americans who are part of a refugee program are facing major hurdles joining family in the United States because of the coronavirus pandemic.
A Salvadoran businesswoman, who is one of the applicants of a small refugee program that was shut down by President Donald Trump, shows documents of the many times she has reported robberies and extortions, in Santa Ana, El Salvador, Saturday, Aug. 22, 2020. She said she was terrified when she began receiving death threats in 2013. Men with tattoos would come to a car wash she used to own to demand "monthly compensation" for letting her operate.
“We feel that at any given moment, someone can knock at the door and say, ‘You are leaving,’” said Lupe, a 24-year-old Salvadoran who arrived in New York in July to reunite with her father after seven years of waiting. “There is a lot of anxiety that comes with that.” Families sued and a settlement was reached last year, with a U.S. judge in California ordering the government to resume processing those who had been approved for the CAM program when it was terminated. The judge said the government was causing harm by preventing the plaintiffs’ children from escaping danger.
Her daughter managed to join her father in Maryland in 2017 before Trump shut down the program. The Salvadoran mother hasn’t seen her husband in 20 years and got her hopes up when she was told to take her medical exam in January. But the clinic closed because of the pandemic. She finally was able to get an exam in late August and now awaits a travel date.
“We have families that were ready to go, were at the airport, and couldn’t travel,” said Rut Mendez, at Centro de Integración para Migrantes, Trabajadores y Trabajadoras, or CIMITRA, a group in El Salvador that helps CAM applicants.
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