Thread by @nadjadrost

I just had an incredible encounter. Our doorbell rang, so I opened the window to look below to the front stoop.
When I saw a man delivering food, I called out to him, letting him know it must be for our neighbors downstairs. This, so far, is normal.

“OK,” he nodded, turned to head down the steps, but stopped, and looked back up at me on the second floor. “Nadja?” he asked. I had no idea who he was.

Here’s the crazy part: he had recognized me from the @newshour @pulitzercenter series @BrunoFederico9 and I reported on migrants making the treacherous journey through the Darien Gap in order to reach the US.

I came downstairs to meet him on the stoop. He excitedly brought the first tv report of the series (w/ @sarajust, @mtill50, @Villaloncarlos ) up on his phone where he had saved it: pbs.org/newshour/show/…

He had made this journey, too – mere weeks after we went through the Darien from Colombia to Panama in Sept. 2019. He related to the group of Bangladeshis in our report whom we came across in the middle of the jungle, with only their wet clothes clinging to their skin –

- armed bandits had robbed them of their food, money, tents. They hadn’t eaten in days. My new friend Ripol is also from Bangladesh, and he told me that he, too, had been robbed. “Everything!” he exclaimed, throwing his mitten-covered hands into the air.

It is -1 C/ 30 F here today. Ripol bikes across New York, making food deliveries. It will be another long winter, as he waits for his asylum application to inch its way through the system, a process stymied by the pandemic and made restrictive and excruciating by Trump.

Ripol has no family in New York. Just the friendships that forged as he and fellow Bangladeshis walked a lucid nightmare through the Darien Gap. Migrants wish they could slough it off as a bad memory, like a snake sheds its skin. But the experience sticks.

Ripol has shared the video with friends and family; it helped them understand what he went through to get here. Now that I’ve reconnected with many who made it to the US, some of these asylum-seekers have told me how much it meant to them to see their journey reported.

It makes them feel seen. I think there is something about having your hardship and suffering known by others – the sheer recognition of it – that alleviates, ever so slightly, the burden of carrying it alone.

I find it easy to get frustrated when I think of all the reporting that, time and time again, exposes injustice and wrong-doing and that should enrage sufficiently to propel change – but doesn’t. Why bother? I sometimes wonder. Hearing from people like Ripol reminds me:

even if journalism doesn’t change the reason he had to traverse a treacherous jungle to get here, or how he is treated here within a dehumanizing asylum system, it can still mean something to the people who live a story: the simple act of telling it, and speaking someone’s truth.

UPDATE 24/01 on the story and how to help: So many have written me asking how they can help recent immigrants like Ripol and where to donate funds. I’m going to share a few organizations who serve large communities with critical work, such as providing them w/ legal assistance...

inside ICE detention and outside (without which, it's nearly impossible to navigate a gutted immigration and asylum system), and assistance along the southern US border and once they are in endless immigration limbo in the US.
I invite you to check out their work:

Al Otro Lado is a bi-national, direct legal services organization with offices in California and Tijuana, Mexico, serving indigent deportees, migrants, and refugees. Not only do they provide legal orientation to asylum seekers who wish to present themselves to U.S. authorities...

to seek asylum, they are a key player in litigation efforts challenging the systemic human rights violations brought about by governmental policies and practices that infringe upon the right to seek asylum at the U.S.-Mexico Border. alotrolado.org

Haitian Bridge Alliance: With a focus on helping Haitian and African immigrant and asylum-seekers on the border and in ICE facilities across the US, this org gives assistance to asylum-seekers on the border, in ICE detention and upon release with legal representation, ....

bond payments and providing a safety net once they’re out -- and advocating for due process when asylum-seekers are suddenly whisked way on deportation flights. @GuerlineMJozef at haitianbridge.org

Seguimos Adelante provides essential supplies and services to asylum-seekers on the Mexican side of the border in Ciudad Juárez, where migrants are stuck, waiting to start or continue their immigration claims at U.S. ports of entry. seguimosadelante.org

Immigrant Families Together: NYC-based organization dedicated to reuniting and supporting immigrant families separated at the US/Mexico border. Among many services, helps to provide legal representation and transitional housing. immigrantfamiliestogether.com

Also: many of you have asked what happens to migrants on their journey once they have made it out of the Darien Gap. I invite you to watch the rest of our @pulitzercenter -supported @newshour series in Panama and Mexico –

-- these pieces were all filmed and co-produced @BrunoFederico9 whose beautiful and empathetic eye, and his insane efforts wielding a camera while running up and down muddy pitches, gave us these impressive images. Panama: to.pbs.org/3c8dV3B

@NewsHour in Mexico :
to.pbs.org/3ofjWxS

Lastly, to understand what migrants experience as traumas from home compound with the harrowing experience of crossing the Darien, I wrote about a group of Cameroonians and Pakistanis for @CalSunday - a story in collaboration with the best long-form editor out there, @kitrachlis,

and photographers @Villaloncarlos , @LisettePoole1 and @BrunoFederico9 who brought beauty to the page:
story.californiasunday.com/darien-gap-mig…

UPDATE #2, 24/01: @BrunoFederico9 and I just met up with Ripol, back on our stoop, and have an update, some clarifications and another dash of surreal coincidence tossed into the mix:

1. Ripol’s name is actually Ripon – this was my mistake, please forgive freezing texting fingers!

2. Upon hearing the doorbell ring today, we stepped out. Ripon gave Bruno as affectionate as a fist bump can get, and I explained that @BrunoFederico9 was the one who filmed the tv reports. “I know!” Ripon said.

3. Ripon put his cousin on his speaker phone who so helpfully translated between Bengali and English -and revealed something that got lost in translation yesterday: the reason Ripon recognized us so easily is b/c HE WAS ONE OF THE MIGRANTS WHO WE FILMED IN OUR @newshour REPORT.

4. I hadn’t recognized Ripon, with a mask and, thankfully, looking healthier than he was in the Darien. While I had understood he went through the Darien a few weeks after us, he had tried telling me he left the migrant camp at the trail’s end a few weeks later.

5. Ripon and his group had been robbed four times in the Darien and spent over a week without food, tents or extra clothing, as they traversed rivers and slept under torrential downpours.

6. Imagine what it was like when I handed Ripon the @CalSunday magazine issue that documented his journey, and pointed himself out among @Villaloncarlos' photos:

7. This is Ripon:

8. Ripon closed the magazine, shook his head and exclaimed “Aaahhh! A lot of death!” I think we all felt a moment of sustained disbelief over the horror of their journey, and the serendipity of sitting on a stoop in NYC together.

9. Ripon’s cousin told us Ripon fled Bangladesh because of a death threat he received as a result of his activity supporting government-opposition groups. We had met other Bangladeshis who had also been persecuted for their political activities in supporting the opposition.

10. Ripon left behind his wife and two young children in Bangladesh. His cousin is grateful Ripon made it here – especially after watching the video of what he went through. His cousin helped sponsor Ripon so could leave ICE detention after 2 months + 22 days.

11. Eventually, he was allowed to take off an ankle bracelet that many in immigration proceedings must wear. Ripon told us most of the Bangladeshis he crossed the Darien with are here in NYC – but one was deported. Bruno and I hope to get together with them in warmer days.

12. In the mean time, Ripon will try opening a bank account to receive the money from a Go Fund Me campaign initiated by thread-reader @sebhooker. Ripon is moving soon – turns out he’ll be living less than 10 blocks away☺