Last year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis drew criticism from the left and praise from the right for sending a group of migrants to the liberal enclave of Martha’s Vineyard. Locals promptly panicked and said the island just wasn’t equipped to “provide sustainable accommodation” to the migrants. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker activated the National Guard to quickly help relocate the 49 illegal immigrants to a new shelter at Joint Base Cape Cod. But it turns out not all of them left.
The New York Times caught up with Deici Cauro, a Venezuelan migrant who now works as a landscaper. She came with her cousin and brother, who got jobs in painting and roofing.
And it turns out they’re loving life on the wealthy island.
“I did not even know where Martha’s Vineyard was. And now I feel welcomed by everybody here. I’m working, making friends and this is home for me now,” Cauro told The Times. “This is home now. I don’t want to leave.”
The small group first stayed at the home of a Martha’s Vineyard resident until they earned enough money to get a place of their own.
Not all the other migrants that left the island are faring as well, with some not yet obtaining work permits, while others are still in shelters, unable to afford rent.
The four migrants who managed to stay on the island have also had challenges. Ms. Cauro said she still found it hard to trust strangers after the deeply unsettling sense of being cast adrift by people who she now thinks used her and her relatives as political pawns.
She said it was important to her to pay her own way and not become a burden on the community that welcomed her. Her employer, a woman in her 60s who declined to be named because she was employing someone without a work permit, said Ms. Cauro felt like part of the family. (NYT)
Still, Cauro says she’s “happy.”
“We came here to work in any job, no matter how hard. We are just happy to be living here,” she said.
Her brother, married with two children back in Venezuela, told The Times that once he secures his legal status, he hopes to bring his wife and kids back to what he now considers “home.”