Stylist is among those in search of work

Soranjel Fermin, 42, worked in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, as a hair stylist. She arrived in Denver about a month ago with her son and her niece, both in their 20s.

Her husband and her niece’s boyfriend haven’t made it — they were detained in New Mexico, she said, after the group’s harrowing journey to the U.S. over the course of more than a year. They walked to Colombia then later trekked through the jungles of Panama, earning money along the way by taking on jobs.

They lived on the streets of Mexico City before riding atop trains to Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso. They emerged soaking wet and hungry on the other side of the Rio Grande, she said.

In Denver, the trio bounced from shelter to shelter and spent time on the street before a church pastor let the group stay in her house for about a week. Similar generosity helped them to settle into an apartment with other people, covering the deposit and first month’s rent.

“Now, it’s our turn to pay,” Fermin said in Spanish, through a translator. The five people living in the unit need to come up with $1,600, but so far, their attempts at securing work permits have been unsuccessful.

Fermin has inquired at salons, but she needs to study for eight months to get a license in her new country.

“I would do whatever it takes to be employed because we don’t know how we’re going to pay,” she said. “If they say ‘Go clean,’ I would clean. If they say ‘Go work in a restaurant,’ I would cook.”

Fermin dreams of staying in Denver, maybe even becoming an American someday. But not every Venezuelan migrant intends to remain in the city for the long term.

Emely Moron, 26, who has been in Denver for a month, said she hoped to return to Venezuela when it’s safer. For now, she plans to stay in one of the city’s shelters until March 28 with her 2-year-old son, her husband and her 14-year-old stepson.

In Venezuela, she ran her own food cart, and her husband worked as a barber. While they wait on their work permits and asylum cases, they’re taking any odd job they can find. Moron also maintains her own Youtube channel — where she posts videos hoping to inspire other migrants to keep going, including those who plan to make it back to Venezuela.

“Sí se puede,” she tells them — “Yes, you can.” It’s not easy, she said, but it’s possible.

Jeison Hurtado Pulgarin, who immigrated from Colombia two months ago, is helping to ease the challenges for other migrants in Denver. Outside the recent work authorization screening event, he and other migrants handed out clothes and other essential items.

While Hurtado Pulgarin waits on a work permit, he’s been able to do landscaping and snow-shoveling. He’s living with his wife and son, alongside two other families.

He said he wanted to assist other migrants the same way people helped him when he arrived in the city. Now residents drop off