North Texas has seen the blossoming of the Venezuelan community with the opening of traditional restaurants, the emergence of kickingball teams, a Venezuelan sport played by women, and the growth of stores selling traditional products from the country.

Texas has the second-largest concentration of Venezuelans in the nation after Florida, according to the 2022 U.S. Census American Community Survey.

In the last decade, about 8 million Venezuelans fled their countries in a massive exodus to the U.S.-Mexico border, fleeing authoritarian regimes, according to the Washington Office on Latin America, a research and advocacy organization.

Among them was Liliana Andrea Araujo, who left her two daughters and set out on the same journey from Venezuela to Dallas-Fort Worth that her husband had taken a year earlier. She carried a bag as a reminder of her promise to one of her daughters. Like Araujo, Beckenbauer Franco, a lawyer and activist who fled Venezuela to escape government repression, carried something of great personal value – a handwritten letter from his daughter and a drawing she made of him.

The memories of the challenges of arriving in North Texas are still fresh in Araujo and Franco’s minds.

Migrants support each other on difficult journey to United States

Araujo, 42, came to the U.S. from Venezuela in May 2023 with the help of her husband, Pedro Ortega, who migrated the year before.

In October 2023, Araujo was shot while working on a Saturday night on a cleaning crew at the State Fair of Texas. She was rushed to the hospital and treated. But pain still lingers for her.

“All I could think was, am I going to die here? To come from too far away to die here? After everything I survived?” Araujo said.

Before she fled Venezuela, Araujo often wondered if she should leave her life, family and daughters behind. But her economic situation was getting worse by the day.

In March 2023, she said goodbye to her daughters, 16 and 21. The younger one gave her a small light purple Totto bag Araujo had bought for her. The brand is well-known in Venezuela, and Araujo’s daughter wanted her to have a nice bag when she arrived in the United States.

Araujo carried the bag from Venezuela across Central America to Mexico. For Araujo, keeping the bag was a symbol of the promise she made to her daughter. She would make it into the U.S. and send her money so she could buy food, school supplies, and the same bag.

Araujo talked at least twice a day with her husband. But she still had days where the journey seemed impossible. She feared being kidnapped or raped as other women along the route had experienced.

She wanted to return home, but Ortega told her there was no going back.

In Mexico, Araujo jumped on a train from Torreón to Juárez. More than 100 people were packed into the rail car – women, children, families, men, children traveling alone. Some of the people even brought their dogs.

Smells mixed together. Perfume. Deodorant. Food. Urine.

But she endured. America beckoned. They were so close to El Paso. She remembered peering out a small hole at the Chihuahua desert. The landscape made her feel serene and hopeful.

“The desert was so beautiful. I had never seen anything like it,” Araujo said of the nearly 24-hour ride.

In a hotel in downtown Juarez, she and her group sipped beer and made plans for their crossing into El Paso.

“We were all crying as soon as we took our first sip – mixed feelings about where we were, how hard it had been to get here and that the next day we were finally going to turn ourselves in to U.S. authorities,” Araujo said.

Araujo was expelled from the country the first time her group attempted to cross the border.

It was a few days before the Biden administration ended the use of Title 42, the pandemic-era policy that was used to expel hundreds of thousands of migrants seeking asylum in the U.S., in May 2023.

The Trump administration enacted the policy during the COVID-19 public health emergency. After Title 42 was lifted, the Border Patrol began apprehending migrants inside the U.S. instead of expelling them from the country.

In the attempt to cross, Araujo lost the small purple bag her daughter had given her.

She was put on a plane with dozens of other migrants. She remembers crying after the authorities handcuffed her hands and feet.

“I’m not a criminal,” she thought.

Araujo was expelled across the Arizona-Nogales border. She was lost and needed to let her husband know what happened.

“I told her to calm down, and I sent her money so she could get a hotel room, buy food and clothes and get a bus ticket to Juarez,” said Ortega, 40.

Once she reached Juarez, Araujo met a group of migrants who invited her to cross the border that evening.

Back in her hotel room, she collapsed on the bed, overwhelmed with tears and uncertainty about trying to cross again.

“I suddenly got up from the bed, got down on my knees and began to pray to God,” Araujo said.

She left the hotel room and walked with the group. Around nightfall, they arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border. They walked along until they found a spot to cross. Another group of people crossed before her group, and she decided to follow them.

A pregnant woman was in the group, and Araujo decided to stick with her to help her. They held hands.

Araujo thought the crossing this time was easier. No one tried to stop them, and things were calm. She only needed to walk to the other side, where she could see hundreds of people in line. A huge pile of trash and clothing from migrants’ belongings was next to the line of people waiting for the authorities to process them.

Araujo slept there overnight, using a dirty sheet to cover herself. At 6 a.m., the Border Patrol showed up and started rounding up groups of people. She was sent to a detention center where she stayed for a few days before she was granted parole.

A few months later, she started working for a cleaning company at the State Fair.

Araujo’s shoulder still hurts from the shooting. She has been unable to find steady work. She is suing the alleged shooter and two companies involved in the fair’s security for more than $1 million, but the trial still has not started, and the outcome is uncertain.

After Araujo began her journey, her oldest daughter took the same trip and now lives in California. Her 16-year-old daughter is still in Venezuela. Araujo sends her money weekly and talks to her often.

Given the ongoing violence in the country, Araujo doesn’t know how long her daughter will stay there. She hopes to bring her to the U.S.

Government response to activism led one man to leave his home

As a lawyer and activist, Beckenbauer Franco, from Barcelona, Venezuela, decided he needed to flee the country after he was detained for protesting against the reelection of President Nicolás Maduro in the summer of 2018.

He was detained for three days, he said, and his family and friends did not know anything about him during that time.

“They beat me in a dark room, where they told me that I was going to pay for all the things I was doing against the government,” Franco, 44, said.

After that encounter, he left home with the only things he could carry. Among them was a handwritten letter his then 7-year-old daughter wrote him on Father’s Day and a cartoon-like drawing of him by her on paper in the shape of a heart.

In the drawing, Franco wears sunglasses, his hair up, a white T-shirt and blue jeans. Next to him are two hearts. One has a smiley face. The other reads, “te quiero.” or “I love you.”'

These two mementos from Franco’s life in Venezuela strengthened him as he made his way to the United States.

He initially moved to Peru where he worked several jobs for almost five years.

Franco left for the United States in 2023 when he could no longer find work. First, he traveled to Colombia, then crossed the Darién Gap, which he described as “hell,” to get into Panama.

In the jungle, the group he was traveling with was detained by a paramilitary group and assaulted. They lost their food, and people got sick. Some couldn’t keep up, and they had to stay behind.

Franco said his faith sustained him.

“Everything was traumatic. A mother told me to help her with her baby, and (I) carried him for miles and miles,” Franco said. “The boy didn’t even cry once. He was so dehydrated and hungry.”

Multiple times during his journey, Franco was extorted by gangs and local police or immigration authorities in Latin America.

When he arrived in Matamoros, Coahuila, Franco was kidnapped along with three other people. As soon as he got off the bus, a group of men surrounded him and the others. If they wanted to be released, their families would have to pay $1,500.

They were put in a van, and after about an hour of driving, they arrived at the hideout. He ran away as soon as they got out of the van and he was able to escape, he said.’

Franco had to call the families of the other three people and tell them to contact the kidnappers. He said the families didn’t send the full amount, but the people were free.

A week later he and another group decided to cross the Rio Grande around 4 a.m.

It was foggy and dark, and it was difficult to see the people behind them. Franco said the current was strong, and it kept pulling their bodies as they tried to reach the U.S. side.

A man who crossed after them didn’t know how to swim and struggled in the water. The Venezuelan man asked for help, but when the group turned around, they couldn’t save him.

“It was the worst thing I have ever lived. We just couldn’t help him,” Franco said. “You feel useless because you hear that someone is dying in front of you, but you can’t see him. You can’t throw yourself into the water.”

His daughter’s letters survived the river because he had put them in a small plastic bag. After crossing, he read them, and they gave him strength again.

Franco came to North Texas because he heard it was a booming place for Venezuelans, and there were employment opportunities in a thriving economy.

Since he has been here, Franco has attended the bilingual service at Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas almost every Sunday for the last year. He has found a community and a place to connect with God and create friendships in his new country.

Franco works the overnight shift in a plastic bottle recycling center. The late hours leave little time for other activities during the day.

Still, he is trying to learn English and is taking an online course to become an insurance agent.

Franco talks to his daughter every day while he waits for his asylum case.

He tells her what Dallas looks like, where she can go to college if she comes here, and how he is working every day to bring her here legally without having to go through what he went through.

“There are two things that play with the human being when arriving to a country from zero — patience and faith,” Franco said.

“Every day, we take a step, and when you manage to achieve economic stability and stabilize a roof, you will see the results and say, ‘It was worth it. Thank God I am here.’”

This is part of a joint reporting effort called Crossing Points that is intended to show migration into the United States from a global perspective using new storytelling techniques. The lead partners are The Dallas Morning News, VII Foundation and Outriders.