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After an epic journey ends, what happens next?
The jungle was the hardest part, because of all the things you see there. There were dead people and wild animals. It was so dangerous,” the Venezuelan told “And we had the kids. Every day was more complicated with the kids.”
This week, Ms Camacho was in El Paso, Texas, cradling her eldest daughter Mia atop a pile of donated blankets on a pavement in the city’s downtown, her husband a few metres away smoking a cigarette as they plotted their next move.
Ms Camacho, 23, is one of more than two million migrants who have arrived at the US-Mexico border in the last year – a number that many fear will spike even further as the US heads into 2023. Nowhere is this more true than El Paso, where swelling numbers of migrants in recent weeks have left local officials scrambling for resources.
Like the Camacho family, life in the US for most of the migrants claiming asylum begins when they present themselves to Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers at the US border.
Once processed, the migrants – recently nearly 1,500 each day in El Paso alone – are released to local officials and organisations, who feed them, give them water and donations of clothes and provide temporary shelter.
These groups also help the migrants coordinate their travel plans. Most hope to travel further into the US to be reunited with family or to find work while they await court dates that will ultimately determine their status in the country.
On the streets of El Paso this week, the BBC spoke to migrants on their way to places across the US. Some are classified as “sponsored” migrants who have relatives or friends offering financial support, while others are travelling with no connections at all and with little more than the clothes on their back.
