Fleeing My Homeland: Venezuela (with Lever Alejos)
02/03/23 • 28 min
In July of last year – 2022 – Lever Alejos emerged from the jungle in Panama, with no shoes, and just the tattered remains of clothes that still clung to his body after almost a week trekking through the Darien Gap – a 60 mile stretch of untamed, undeveloped jungle between Colombia and Panama. Lever was coming from Venezuela, escaping political persecution, in search of a better life.
On arriving at the Texas border, he was processed by the United States government and then - and put on a bus out of the state, not knowing where he was being sent, presumably at the direction of Texas governor Greg Abbott. Although – I have to say that the governors of Texas, Arizona, and Florida have all employed this practice with immigrants arriving at the border, and they have done so shrouded in secrecy, so the details remain unclear as to which governor is responsible for which bus. This fact alone is unsettling – and, to my mind, I have to wonder why keep it a secret, unless one is worried about its legality or its humanity.
In end, Lever was dropped off in Washington DC, and this is is currently where he is.
This episode is about Lever and his experience coming to the United States – why he left Venezuela, what his journey here was like, how he has been received in the United States, and what he hopes for his future.
While this is a very personal story – I urge you to consider this when listening: this is one of thousands of similar stories. Of people fleeing persecution, violence, war, torture – at the hands of their governments, most often authoritarian governments. Lever was one of the lucky few to have successfully made it – and by that I mean, survived the journey. Many people have died trying – either succumbed to the environment or have been murdered by police, cartels, bandits, and other nefarious actors.
As you will hear from Lever – people are putting their lives, very literally, on the line for a better life than the one their own government is providing. And, regardless of your politics, this should give you some pause. At minimum – to consider how lucky we all are to live in the country that we do.
Mentioned:
Lever Profiled in New York Times
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Recommended:
-------------------------
Follow Deep Dive:
Bluesky
YouTube
Email: [email protected]
Music:
Majestic Earth - Joystock
In July of last year – 2022 – Lever Alejos emerged from the jungle in Panama, with no shoes, and just the tattered remains of clothes that still clung to his body after almost a week trekking through the Darien Gap – a 60 mile stretch of untamed, undeveloped jungle between Colombia and Panama. Lever was coming from Venezuela, escaping political persecution, in search of a better life.
On arriving at the Texas border, he was processed by the United States government and then - and put on a bus out of the state, not knowing where he was being sent, presumably at the direction of Texas governor Greg Abbott. Although – I have to say that the governors of Texas, Arizona, and Florida have all employed this practice with immigrants arriving at the border, and they have done so shrouded in secrecy, so the details remain unclear as to which governor is responsible for which bus. This fact alone is unsettling – and, to my mind, I have to wonder why keep it a secret, unless one is worried about its legality or its humanity.
In end, Lever was dropped off in Washington DC, and this is is currently where he is.
This episode is about Lever and his experience coming to the United States – why he left Venezuela, what his journey here was like, how he has been received in the United States, and what he hopes for his future.
While this is a very personal story – I urge you to consider this when listening: this is one of thousands of similar stories. Of people fleeing persecution, violence, war, torture – at the hands of their governments, most often authoritarian governments. Lever was one of the lucky few to have successfully made it – and by that I mean, survived the journey. Many people have died trying – either succumbed to the environment or have been murdered by police, cartels, bandits, and other nefarious actors.
As you will hear from Lever – people are putting their lives, very literally, on the line for a better life than the one their own government is providing. And, regardless of your politics, this should give you some pause. At minimum – to consider how lucky we all are to live in the country that we do.
Mentioned:
Lever Profiled in New York Times
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Recommended:
-------------------------
Follow Deep Dive:
Bluesky
YouTube
Email: [email protected]
Music:
Majestic Earth - Joystock
Previous Episode
Fleeing My Homeland: Russia
According to the 2022 Freedom in the World report issued by Freedom House – 38% of the global population live in Not Free countries, and only 20% live in Free countries. In 2022 alone, 60 countries experienced declines in democratic freedom, while only 25 experienced increases. This picture is stark – democracies are in decline. Authoritarianism is on the rise.
Increasingly, especially on the Right, this trend is leveraged to suggest that authoritarian regimes are a legitimate alternative to democracy. That the rise of authoritarianism reflects the desire and need for something other than democracy – some counterbalance. But, this argument misses something fundamental. We need to consider something else in tandem with this trend – the rise of authoritarianism - to help us more fully draw conclusions and make assumptions. Perhaps it’s important to know how people living in these countries feel about increasing unfreedom.
So, here’s something to consider. The world is also awash in refugees and immigrants – almost universally fleeing authoritarian, theocratic, and totalitarian regimes; and they are landing in democracies. They are fleeing TO freedom. This undercuts the legitimacy of authoritarianism as a viable alternative to democracy. People don’t want to live in authoritarian states – They don’t want to live without voice, without freedom, without safety.
So, this is a different picture, a reality – that the number of democracies is declining while the number of authoritarian states is increasing – which has led to a massive influx of people fleeing these unfree states into increasingly shrinking available free states - this is a crisis. Not of democracy. It’s a crisis of authoritarianism.
So, the next two episodes – today and next week - take a closer look at people that are fleeing two of these authoritarian regimes. Next week I’m talking to someone who fled political persecution in Venezuela for a better life in the United States – only to arrive and be placed on a bus commissioned by the Texas governor with no knowledge of where he was going and what would happen when he got there. And, today, I’m talking to someone who has fled Russia – Sergey refused to be mobilized to fight in support of the Putin’s war in Ukraine. We talk about his life before the war, how and why he decided to leave his homeland, how it has disrupted his life, and what he hopes for his future, having lost everything he had planned for himself and his family.
Recommended:
Freedom House
Mentioned:
Wednesday (TV Series)
-------------------------
Follow Deep Dive:
Bluesky
YouTube
Email: [email protected]
Music:
Majestic Earth - Joystock
Next Episode
Greatest Hit: Frank Mugisha - Being Gay and Under Threat of Death in Uganda
**On January 24, 2023, Pope Francis stated in an interview with the AP that being a homosexual is not a crime. This reminded me of a conversation that I had in October of 2022 with Dr. Frank Mugisha of Uganda about being gay and also Catholic. Today, Deep Dive is re-visiting that conversation. **
Today I’m talking to Dr. Frank Mugisha. He is the Executive Director of SMUG – which stands for Sexual Minorities Uganda, a support and advocacy organization for queer Ugandans that was recently shut down by the Uganda government. For his work, Frank was awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award and the Rafto Prize in 2011. In 2014, he was a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2017, he was listed as one of Fortune Magazine’s World’s Greatest Leaders. And, this year, 2022, he was awarded the Civil Rights Defender of the Year Award.
In Uganda, gay sex is illegal and, depending on the charges levied, could carry the death penalty. In addition to harassment by government officials and law enforcement, mob violence is a very real threat in Uganda. This has led to the beating and murder of a number of Frank’s friends and colleagues. Since SMUG was shut down, the government has waged a social media campaign directly targeting Frank, labeling him a groomer and pedophile (mirroring the same tactics that Republicans are employing in the states).
I want to thank United States Senator Tammy Baldwin and her office for providing some assistance.
If you would like to assist Frank in any way, whether it be moral, legal, or emotional support, please contact him at [email protected]
You can also contact Shawn at [email protected] for other ways to provide support, or to make the appropriate connection on your behalf.
If you are are in a similiar situation, or know someone who is, the following resources may be useful:
Center for Constitutional Rights
United States Citizenship and Immigration Service - Refugees and Asylum Seekers
-------------------------
Follow Deep Dive:
Bluesky
YouTube
Email: [email protected]
Music:
Majestic Earth - Joystock
Deep Dive with Shawn - Fleeing My Homeland: Venezuela (with Lever Alejos)
Transcript
Fleeing My Homeland: Venezuela Transcript
Lever: We started with about 75 people – Venezuelans, Cubans and people from some other countries - and came out with only 15. So there were about 60 people that we had to leave along the way. We tried to rescue people when they go into some kind of trouble, but people were stranded and some of them were children.
I came close to dying in that jungle several times. I think it was thanks to God that I got out of there a
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/deep-dive-with-shawn-266143/fleeing-my-homeland-venezuela-with-lever-alejos-31687266"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to fleeing my homeland: venezuela (with lever alejos) on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy