GILBERT, Ariz. — Saiz Cabrera left her home nine days ago, traveling through Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico before crossing the border in the U.S. and turning herself in to Border Patrol at the port in Yuma.
She left her parents and teenage daughter behind.
“Very hard, very hard. But it’s almost like you’re forced to migrate,” Cabrera said. “If you don’t think like the government, you’re on their bad side. You have a totally impossible life.”
Cabrera was one of more than two dozen migrants who arrived on a white bus Thursday at Vineyard Community Church in Gilbert.
Many of the migrants came from Cuba and will stay briefly in Arizona to meet up with their family members.
As Cabrera and others stepped off the bus, they grabbed clear plastic bags full of their things, including paperwork that allows them to stay in the United States awaiting a hearing.
“It was hard, but I made it,” Taine Mercedes Saiz Cabrera told 12News in Spanish.
Pastor Magdalena Schwartz said she and her volunteers take in upwards of 200 people weekly at the church.
“This humanitarian crisis has a name, people, not numbers. Sometimes we see numbers. No, here, we see names,” Schwartz said.
During the day, the migrants and asylum seekers are at the church, and volunteers help make phone calls to their sponsors or relatives to get them a ticket to wherever in the United States they’re headed. In addition to providing them with food and clothing.
"They are hungry for freedom, they’re hungry for better opportunities and hungry for their life,” Schwartz said.
Title 42 ending
Title 42, which is set to end next week, is the Trump-era policy that has continued under the Biden administration allows the government to turn away migrants and asylum seekers citing concerns over spreading COVID-19. Public health experts and migrant advocates have heavily criticized the policy.
Schwartz said she’s heard many people’s family members turned back to the other side of the border under the policy.
“I hope Title 42 can be removed so that the families can come here with the process,” Schwartz said.
Still, she’s concerned about the policy ending, anticipating more people needing help that Schwartz’s church and other organizations provide.
“We don't have the capacity to receive any more people, to attend to any more people, we are very, very limited, so I am really, really worried about it,” Schwartz said. “I want to leave everything in God’s hands. God will provide.”
After Title 42’s ending, Schwartz, an immigrant from Chile herself, hopes for further changes.
“We need comprehensive immigration reform,” Schwartz said. “Keep the family united, keep the family together.”
Schwartz said if people would like to help her care for the migrants who pass through the Valley to meet up with their families, she can be contacted at 480-221-7970.
Up to Speed
Catch up on the latest news and stories on the 12News YouTube channel. Subscribe today.