“The economy started going down in Peru,” Crisman Urbaez told CNN. “We couldn’t afford much food. There is also a lot of xenophobia against Venezuelans in Latin America. Sometimes people insulted us and I didn’t want that for my children.” Using cars for transportation, the family crossed parts of Ecuador and Colombia in late April. Then a four-day trek through the jungles of northern Colombia took them to Panama. Sebastian Urbaez, the couple’s son, told CNN there were times when he was exhausted. At those times, he said, Max lay on top of him and licked his cheek to cheer him up. “He was so tough. He just kept walking with us. He’s not just a dog. He’s like our brother now,” said Sebastian, 9. Determined to get Max to the United States, the family said they put him on several buses, wrapping him in a blanket and passing him off as a child. “Costa Rica was hard to get through. Once they realized Max was a dog, they asked us to get off the bus,” Crisman said. “But we kept trying.” After weeks of sleeping on cardboard and navigating safely through Mexico, the family crossed the Rio Grande and surrendered to immigration authorities in Eagle Pass, Texas, on June 19.
Seeking asylum and looking for Max
The Urbaez family applied for asylum while crossing the border. But immigration officials didn’t want to admit Max into the country. Anabel was told to think of her children and leave the dog behind. “But I couldn’t,” said Annabelle. “Not after everything he’s been through with our family.” Sebastian and his 6-year-old sister, Criszanyelis, began to cry as the family begged immigration officials to let them take Max with them, to no avail. “There was an officer who I believe God put in our path,” Anabel told CNN. “I’m so grateful to him. He cried a little too. Then he told me he took Max to a shelter and gave me the address of the shelter so I could go look for him once we were released.” The immigration officer, according to Anabel, recognized Max from articles published by Latin American news agencies that had covered the family’s unusual trip. Mexican news agency Posta dubbed the dog “Max, the immigrant dog.” After the release, the family went to the dog shelter to retrieve Max. But the shelter told them they had left Max with a man who claimed to be related to the family. The Urbaez family was able to locate the man — an immigrant who had traveled with the family, according to Anabel. He agreed to return Max if they took him to Uvalde, Texas. With the help of a stranger who offered to give the family a ride, the Urbaezes were reunited with Max the next day. They were then at Uvalde Memorial Park, where Criszanyelis left a toy at the memorial set up for the 21 victims of the Robb Elementary School shooting, Anabel said.
The urban jungle
After being released from US custody, immigration officials in Texas had taken the Urbaez family to a shelter in New York and scheduled a meeting with immigration court. The family, with Max safe in their custody, was now determined to get to New York and appear before a judge. With the help of a stranger who met the stranded Urbaezes at a gas station, the family hitched a ride to San Antonio, where they hoped to find more help. In San Antonio, they approached an organization that provides assistance to immigrants (Annabelle doesn’t remember the name of the group, but said all the workers wore blue jackets). “They helped us and got us plane tickets to New York, but when they realized we had a dog, they canceled our tickets.” Chrisman said. The family told CNN they begged the organization for help, and they eventually agreed to get the family bus tickets to New York. The Urbaezes spent three days on the road, the couple said, before arriving in New York shortly before midnight on June 27. The family arrived at the Port Authority and began searching for the shelter flagged by immigration officials in Texas. After asking for directions several times, they found the shelter, but were denied entry because the organization only helps survivors of domestic violence, not entire families, according to Anabel. It appeared the family would spend the night on the streets, until they struck up a conversation with the owner of a bodega at 9th Avenue and 39th Street, according to the couple. When the owner heard the family’s story, he offered to let them sleep in his truck for the night. “He told me he didn’t want anything from me. That he was going to let me sleep in his car for the night and help me find a place to go the next day,” Crisman said. The next day the owner fed the family and let them hang out in his grocery store. When Robert Gonzalez, a local resident and activist who frequents the store, stopped by, the bodega owner asked Gonzalez to help the family, Gonzalez told CNN. Gonzalez, who has been helping immigrant families in Venezuela for the past two years, asked the bodega owner to take the family to the Office of Prevention Assistance and Temporary Housing in the Bronx. But the family was rejected again. The shelter does not allow dogs. Gonzalez then contacted a therapist friend who helped the family begin the process of registering Max as a service dog so he could join the family at shelters. In the meantime, a volunteer picked up Max, and the family spent the next two days waiting for the city’s homeless shelter to process their paperwork. The family now lives in a shelter in Bushwick, Brooklyn. And even though they finally have a warm bed to sleep in, they still feel stuck, they said, even though they’re grateful to have arrived in the United States. “Father can’t work,” Gonzalez said. “Until the next court, they are not allowed to work, so they have to rely on people like me who are willing to help. It’s worse for Venezuelan immigrants because they are orphans in a sense. There is no Venezuelan embassy or consulate in the United States they can run if they need help or a copy of a document from their home country.” This fall, Sebastian and Criszanyelis Urbaez will be among the roughly 1,000 children of asylum seekers the Department of Human Services expects to enroll in New York public school as part of Project Open Arms, a city initiative to help asylum seekers. families with academic and language needs. The family’s next court date is in October 2023, when they will learn if they have been granted permission to work legally. In an interview with CNN, Manuel Castro, New York’s Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs, said the city is asking the federal government to step in and provide additional support to the city and expedite work permits for asylum seekers. “Most families I’ve talked to, they want to go to work, they don’t want to stay in shelters. They just want to contribute to society, they just want to be quiet,” Castro said. Meanwhile, Max has become a certified service dog. “We don’t think of him as just a dog. We see him as part of the family.” Anabel said. “The kids wouldn’t forgive us if we left him behind.”
