Stuck in red tape: A Venezuelan migrant’s labyrinthine pursuit of the American dream for her US-born son
Yolexi Cubillan worried as she waited in line with her infant son and hundreds of other Venezuelans at the Illinois Department of Human Services. Around her, babies cried as men and women clutched folders with immigration documents. She had been waiting for four hours.
Yolexi, 19, gave birth to her son, Derick, in Chicago a little over a month ago, but the asylum-seeker doesn’t have money to buy diapers, baby formula or clothes, much less a stroller or a toy.
She had just received her son’s Social Security card, and was hoping to use it to apply for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. But, after waiting all day with her newborn, she was told she was at the wrong office. She needed to go somewhere else. Meanwhile, authorities still haven’t released her son’s birth certificate to her because she doesn’t have the right documents.
“I’m really sad because if I want to bring Derick home, he needs a passport. And in order to get a passport, he needs his birth certificate,” she said in Spanish. “It’s all impossible.”
Over the past month, the Tribune followed Yolexi in her struggle to secure a birth certificate and benefits for her U.S. citizen son, waiting with her in chaotic, hourslong lines in a mix of county and state offices. Her efforts often ended with little progress and no solutions.
Driven by political and economic instability in her home country, Yolexi is one of more than 18,000 migrants who have come to Chicago in the past year, now being funneled into a set of tenuous social services that are struggling to keep up.
Employees at government offices and nonprofits tasked at helping migrants have told the Tribune they are overworked and understaffed. Lines can often snake outside office buildings and tempers flare. In at least one instance witnessed by the Tribune, police were called to help restore order.
More than 7.3 million Venezuelans have left their country of origin, making it the second-largest displacement in the world, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In July, the Tribune followed Yolexi and her boyfriend’s family (plus a dog) on their journey from the border town of El Paso, Texas, to Chicago. Thousands of families like them have arrived in the city over the past year.
A visit to Cook County
Following the Sept. 3 birth of her baby at University of Chicago Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital, Yolexi was at home, pensive. She wanted to bring her baby to meet her family in Venezuela during the first years of his life, but she didn’t know how she could.
She had received a packet from the Hyde Park hospital where she had delivered with instructions to go to the Cook County clerk’s vital records office downtown to obtain her baby’s birth certificate, a document that would allow her to apply for SNAP benefits. On Sept. 18, wearing a brown winter coat and mascara for the occasion, she left her 2-week-old baby in the care of family in the beige house with peeling blue steps in south Chicago they called home The commute to the Loop would take hours.
When she finally arrived at the County Building, she went to Room 120 where she got into a line with other Chicagoans seeking permanent documentation. After about 30 minutes of waiting, a woman in a cubicle called her over.
Yolexi sat down and the women exchanged quick pleasantries. Right away, the employee realized she couldn’t help because Yolexi did not have an identification card that met official requirements.
“I literally want to help, but I can’t do anything. I really can’t,” the woman said.
She gave Yolexi a list of acceptable forms of identification in Spanish: “Lista de documentos para solicitar el acta de nacimiento, acta de matrimonio, y acta de defunción. List of documents to request birth, marriage, and death records.”
The acceptable forms of documentation were either a U.S.-issued or a consulate identification card — or two other forms of identification such as utility bills or bank statements, which Yolexi didn’t have and had no idea how to get.
When migrants arrive at the border, their documents are often taken from them by Border Patrol, and they are given a piece of paper with their picture that functions as their identification. Many, like Yolexi, don’t have passports.
Because of the diplomatic breakdown between the United States and Venezuela caused by the country’s far-left president, Nicolás Maduro, there are no active Venezuela consulate offices in the United States for Venezuelan citizens to obtain their documents.
“This is a struggle for Cook County,” said Angela Wright Madison, director of vital records for Cook County. “The biggest challenge for us is with the country of Venezuela. Migrants from other countries — other countries in Central America — can go to their consulate office here in the United States and get assistance.”
Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough said her team is doing its best to respond to Venezuelan migrants by expanding the types of documentation they will accept, but the office has to make sure it isn’t issuing vital records to scammers. She said the clerk’s office hasn’t seen many migrants coming for birth certificates, but has seen many seeking wedding certificates.
They have some people in the office who speak Spanish, she said, but language can also pose barriers.
“The unstableness of the government. It’s really unfortunate. These people are in the middle. They would stay in their country if it wasn’t just total chaos there, and they fear for their lives,” Yarbrough said.
Yolexi took the form from the Cook County office listing acceptable identification types. She folded down the creases in the paper and carefully put it in a plastic folder with her other documents. She has no means of getting the required documents on the list. Yolexi’s entire interaction with the county employee lasted just five minutes.
She was picked up and brought to the house where she’s staying with her boyfriend, Fabián, in Englewood, At home, she stared at a pile of open letters on her kitchen table she’d received from the hospital and the Illinois Department of Public Health, most of them in English, which she can’t read.
“I miss my parents, and I feel a little guilty that I’m not giving them the privilege of seeing my son,” she said.
No county administrator or official reached by the Tribune could answer how Yolexi could obtain her son’s birth certificate without proper documentation. A spokesman for the Illinois Department of Public Health, Mike Claffey, said, “Under state law, a parent can apply for a birth certificate through a county clerk’s office or IDPH’s Vital Records Division. If they submit a valid foreign government ID we would review their documentation and provide a birth certificate if their information can be verified.”
But the government identification Yolexi provided to the county was rejected. And no one told her she could reach out to the state for verification.
Program never meant for this many people
Four days later, on Sept. 22, Yolexi received Derick’s Social Security card in the mail.
Cook County Health has seen over 200 pregnant women among the thousands of migrants who have come to the city since last fall, and the Social Security application paperwork can be done at the hospital, according to Cook County Health spokesperson Alexandra Normington. The Social Security Administration takes the process from there, and the average processing time is about two weeks.
Yolexi called the state’s human services office to figure out what to do next.
The piece of cardstock with Derick’s Social Security number would be the key to getting the help she needed for the food stamps but not the birth certificate, a representative from the office told her over the phone. But she would need to go to their office in Sauganash — a 40-minute drive from home.
On Sept. 25, Yolexi was dropped off at the Illinois Department of Human Services office, where hundreds of migrants from Venezuela lined up outside waiting for an appointment. She, like others in line, was hoping to be seen by the program serving foreign-born victims of trafficking, torture, or other serious crimes, known as the VTTC.
In place of a diaper bag, she had packed a lunch box with Huggies and an extra baby jumper, and carried Derick in a carseat she’d received from the hospital. He wore a white jumpsuit that read “I am the future.”
The VTTC office on the sixth floor of the high-rise provides eligible individuals — who may not qualify for other federally funded public benefits programs due to their immigration status — access to food, cash and medical benefits. These days, the employees mostly see Venezuelans.
During Yolexi’s visit, the office couldn’t fit everyone, so people were moved outside. The line wrapped around the building. This program was never meant for this many people, human services employees working that day told the Tribune.
According to one state worker, the organization of the intake was so bad that day that migrants tried to make their own list of names. If they weren’t on their self-made list upon arrival, they would have to go to the back of the line.
But the list added to the chaos, as people disagreed about the order and tried to move their way to the front. State workers called Chicago police.
Immediately after Yolexi arrived at the IDHS office, she sat on the curb and watched as police tried to organize the group of people.
“No! No, no, no, no!” shouted one police officer, pushing a migrant out of the way. “Por allá! Vamos entonces! Go over there, let’s go!”
Venezuelans shouted and maneuvered their way to the front, and as the police pushed them away from the door, their bodies crammed together. Trying to keep their place in line, their heads and bodies pressed up against the glass wall of the building. They frantically tried to explain that they were waiting in line, waiting for help.
Amid the turmoil, a Ukrainian man seeking refuge came to the office and asked to be seen. He was immediately ushered by a human services employee up to the family community resource center on the fifth floor.
Ukrainians fleeing their country are eligible for an immigration process similar to the one for Venezuelans, said Anne Smith, executive director and regulatory counsel of Ukraine Immigration Task Force. Ukrainians and Venezuelans use the same protocols to apply for parole, or permission to temporarily enter the United States, she said, and both groups have been redesignated for an additional protection called temporary protected status.
State officials say they are doing what they can to provide wraparound services for new arrivals from Venezuela at city shelters. In September, they served over 6,000 through case management and information and referral, said director of communications Rachel Otwell.
Yolexi waited outside for more than two hours to be called up to the sixth-floor office. Once inside, she spent another two hours waiting. But Yolexi was able to get authorization on Derick’s Link card to receive SNAP benefits.
Unfortunately for Yolexi, she was told she needed to go to a different government office near her house to activate the PIN.
‘It’s like they don’t want to give it to us.’
Three days later, on Sept. 28, Yolexi received a visit from nurse Naeemah McMillon with Family Connects Chicago, which arranges in-home appointments for new mothers through the Chicago Department of Public Health.
McMillon said Yolexi is the first mother from Venezuela to work with Family Connects Chicago. McMillon stayed for over four hours, using a phone translation service to communicate. She taught Yolexi how to breastfeed correctly, gave her information about the Medicaid she now qualifies for, signed her up for a diaper delivery service and made sure she knew about English language programs and support groups.
Yolexi learned from McMillon that on the first of every month, she is supposed to receive over $200 on the Derick’s Link card. But she doesn’t know the address of the office she needs to go to activate it. And, even with McMillan’s help, she still doesn’t know if she’ll be able to get a birth certificate.
Still, she does have an advantage. Yolexi, unlike many families who have recently arrived from Venezuela, has a permanent address where she can receive letters and at-home visits from the hospital.
Other families are not so lucky.
Valentina Cartaya, 25, from Venezuela, was in line two days after Yolexi at the human services office in Sauganash. She cradled her baby, Aitana, just 22 days old. Cartaya and her husband, Antonio Palma, were there to get Aitana’s Social Security number and birth certificate, they said, which they hadn’t been able to receive in the mail because they didn’t have a permanent address.
They were staying at the Inn of Chicago, a city-run shelter in Streeterville, and had been at a police station for days before being moved to shelter.
They had been to the vital records office downtown two times and had been turned away because they didn’t meet identification requirements. They don’t have their Venezuelan passports.
“It’s like they don’t want to give it to us,” Cartaya said in Spanish. “That worries us, because we don’t know what we’re going to do. We don’t know where to go to get help.”
‘They look at us differently.’
At home in Englewood, Yolexi has been adjusting to living with the family of her baby’s father, caring for a new being that requires constant attention. She’s learning to feed Derick every two hours and find pockets of time to squeeze in rest when she can. Her body is still recovering. She can’t sit comfortably.
“It’s been hard,” she said. “But when you take on a life of responsibilities (with a baby), this is the type of thing you have to do.”
She cradled Derick’s head in the crook of her arm as he cooed softly, wiping the milk that dribbled down his chin.
She spends her free time cooking, cleaning and catching up on sleep. At night, she cries thinking about her parents and siblings thousands of miles away. Her mom calls every day, which she said helps calm her. She sends dozens of photos of the baby in return.
Yolexi said she knows she has to do her best to adapt.
“These are similar challenges that undocumented immigrants have been facing for decades,” said Eréndira Rendón, vice president of immigrant justice at Resurrection Project, a nonprofit organization in Pilsen that helps defend immigrant rights. “It’s a frustrating situation that many folks are in, not just Venezuelans.”
There are currently over 3,000 migrants staying at police stations around the city — many sleeping outside, without safety nets.
“They look at us differently. There are Venezuelans and then there are migrants from other countries,” Yolexi said.
Moments like cops pushing people waiting in line for human services are part of her daily reality. She said she has to turn away when sees migrant families on the side of the road in her neighborhood.
