ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

There were jungles to traverse, 11 countries to travel through, hunger, sickness and moments of joy followed by hopelessness.

Their daughter, Charlotte, was born in Chile.

She almost died in Mexico. They were there, so close to America, as part of for immigrants from certain Latin American countries. But things turned desperate.

“We had to ask for money,� Pedro said.

Charlotte, just a few months old, got malaria. She was severely dehydrated, lost 5 pounds and was near death.

Rhisma fought back tears as she told the story.

“It was very hard,� she said, through an interpreter, “but now we’re here.�

Here is a small home in Florissant, not far from where the husband and wife both work at , which has a plant near ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½-Lambert International Airport and produces meals for airlines.

The family was brought to the area as part of the International Institute’s Latino Outreach program, which kicked off in September 2023 and has resettled 66 people from 30 families. All of the immigrants recruited to ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ already have work permits and Social Security cards, says Karlos Ramirez, vice president of Latino outreach at the International Institute.

The program was the brainchild of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ attorney and philanthropist Jerry Schlichter, who helped fund it, along with support from the Missouri AFL-CIO coalition of labor unions. Immigrants who come to ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ are mostly from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti. They fled their countries because of corrupt governments and entrenched poverty, seeking asylum in the U.S. The program is modeled after one that has resettled about 1,300 refugees from Afghanistan.

Immigrants like the Reyes family are given housing, transportation and meal money for a few months while they get settled. The Reyes couple already had jobs lined up before they flew from New York, where they had been bused after they crossed the border in Texas. In New York, a nonprofit called is helping to identify immigrants for the program, and that organization is funding the travel to ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½. Catholic Charities is helping fund the travel for immigrants who come here from Chicago.

“We don’t bring them here until we have a house or apartment for them,� Ramirez said. “We’re moving very intentionally. We need to make sure we give them to the tools they need to thrive.�

In the next year, the program hopes to bring 500 or more Latino immigrants to ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½, but that is dependent on two things: funding and politics.

In Missouri, key Republican politicians have opposed attempts to increase immigrant populations in Missouri. Attorney General Andrew Bailey has joined filed by Republican attorneys general challenging Biden’s humanitarian parole program. And recently, when Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas made comments about needing to recruit more immigrants to that city, Bailey issued on social media and in a news release.

It was similar to the opposition that came up in St. Charles County and Jefferson City when the International Institute announced its program. When such criticisms arise, Ramirez responds with facts about the program. There are thousands of Latino immigrants in the U.S. who already have work permits and Social Security cards, and they are willing to come to ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ to work.

For the past few months, Ramirez has traveled to Chicago, New York, Denver, Boston and Austin, Texas, to help recruit immigrants for the program. The ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ business community has long pointed to increasing the immigrant population in the city as a key economic development goal, as the city has lost population and businesses have struggled to fill jobs. from the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Mosaic Project pointed to the city’s lower immigrant population compared to other major American cities as a detriment to the region’s economic growth.

Most of the immigrants are being resettled in the city of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½, but some, like the Reyes family, are in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ County, close to their jobs.

The Reyes’ journey to America started early last year. They lived in an oil-rich part of Venezuela, where Pedro and his father worked in the oil fields. But the jobs are government-controlled, and once Pedro found himself on the outside, he couldn’t get enough work to support his family. He and Rhisma moved to Chile, but they set their sights on America when they realized they could qualify for the humanitarian parole program.

So they traveled from Chile to Peru to Colombia, and then Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala, on their way to their promised land. Mexico proved the hardest, in part because so many immigrants are in that country heading to America that they felt a backlash from the locals. At one point, their daughter was dehydrated, so they let her drink water from a river. Then the malaria came.

Later, they crossed from Mexico into the U.S., and requested asylum, as the law allows. Like other immigrants seeking asylum, they were bused to New York, where they competed for work with thousands of other refugees in America’s biggest city. Some days, Pedro would wait outside a Home Depot, hoping to get picked for a daily job. Even when the work came, the pay ended up being marginal, he said, barely enough to survive.

“New York was so crowded,� Rhisma said.

And when some Venezuelan refugees were accused of violent crimes, especially after nursing student Laken Riley was killed in Georgia, Pedro and Rhisma started to worry for their safety.

When the opportunity to move to ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ came up, they jumped at it.

The Reyes say they love ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ — and Florissant — much more than they did New York.

“We feel safe here,� Rhisma said. “Everything is nearby.�

The couple is taking lessons in English and other workforce classes at the International Institute. While in New York, they got married. Now they are settled into their new routine, where they hope to raise their now 18-month-old daughter, free from the government corruption and poverty they fled.

“We came here to work hard, to improve ourselves, and to have a better life,� Pedro said. “We want a better place to live and raise our children, where we can feel safe, and our family can have more opportunities.�