The difficult legal process faced by new immigrants in the United States and the restrictions they have encountered in shelters in New York, where there are couples who have been separated because they are not married or cannot prove it, has generated a wave of marriages that some did not contemplate.
Lutheran and Episcopal priests, known for their activism from churches that are part of the New Sanctuary Movement, are supporting them with a view to putting an end to that separation and facilitating the immigration process .
“What worries me the most and we have to protect it is the family,” Father Fabián Arias, from the St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Midtown, Manhattan, told EFE, who today officiated at the wedding of Nathalie Quintana and Yonaiker Brujo, who had lived together for seven years in their native Venezuela, the country from which most of those who have arrived in New York come from, most of them in buses sent by the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott.
Nathalie, her son of 13 years old (she left three in Venezuela) and Yonaiker, along with two other relatives, crossed the border from Mexico to the US on the 2 October, and ended up in New York, like thousands of other Venezuelans who hope to find opportunities in the Big Apple to start their lives over again.
“Being right with God”
“We were going to do it in Venezuela (get married) but we had to leave,” Yonaiker told EFE after the simple ceremony officiated by Arias in a small church office to which Nathalie adds: “we wanted to be right before God”.
Nathalie explains that the fear for their lives led them to leave the country, after three of her brothers lost their lives the same day during one of the many demonstrations against the government of Nicolás Maduro that took place in 2017 and left a total of 23 dead.
His other brother, who managed to save his life during the protest a, left the country with his 8-year-old girl since his wife died of leukemia five years ago, without being able to receive the bone marrow transplant he needed.
Although the ceremony is not legally valid until that the civil process is not carried out with the city, that does not prevent them from requesting asylum as a family. “Some Immigration agents accept it (marriage), others do not” clarifies the Argentine priest, who also, prior to the ceremony, answered the couple’s doubts about the immigration process and where to get the help they need.
The couple, street vendors in Venezuela, do not yet have the card issued by the city or other identity documents or the budget to pay for the migration process.
Weddings on the border
These marriages so that immigrants are not separated when entering the US and can present the document when requesting asylum as a family is a task that Arias frequently does from the Tijuana region, in the border with Mexico, where he travels at least once a year for that purpose and to give them a certificate.
“The document is used not only to be together in the shelters, but for other processes”, he affirms.
The church of San Pedro and the Buen Pa stor in Brooklyn are among a hundred temples, including mosques and synagogues, that have worked for a long time helping immigrants.
The work they do now with the newcomers, to whom they have sheltered in addition to food and clothing, is a continuation of that activism that It was crucial during the pandemic, the well-known activist and Lutheran priest Juan Carlos Ruiz, from the Buen Pastor church in Brooklyn, who has married some 20, tells EFE couples, including Colombians Lucía and Ricardo, after ten years of living together and parents of an eight-year-old girl.
“When they get married they protect each other before the law (when asking for asylum as a couple). It is a case with more weight before the judge than independently”, affirms the Mexican.
The family arrived in New York last year 20 July and since then they have been in an apartment in the city’s shelter system while waiting to apply for asylum, after receiving death threats in their country.
“We had considered getting married in the future, not so quickly”, points out Lucía as if wanting to justify the simplicity of a ceremony without a suit or rings.