The state of Texas has sent over 21,000 migrants to New York City in recent months.

Many are Venezuelan. But the economic and political turmoil in the South American country is not new. Federal data shows Venezuelans are the most common asylum seeker in the U.S. in the last few years.

Liz Aguero explained, as she walked around Woodside, Queens holding her 5-year-old daughter’s hand, nothing compared to the places they walked last year.

“It took us 54 days to arrive here,” she said, speaking in Spanish.

What You Need To Know

  • A woman who said she used to work for the Venezuelan government waits in a Queens shelter, hoping to be granted political asylum from the United States

  • It took her and her daughter 54 days on foot to reach the southern border from Venezuela

  • She said she has applied for political asylum after her then-husband was beaten up for protesting against the current government

  • She has been here a year and continues to live in the shelter system

She said they walked from Venezuela, through several countries, where she saw things no one should have to see.

“Our group passed by a beach. We saw someone dead,” she said. “I think he died from a heart attack while walking.”

In a word, she described the journey as traumatic.

“The mud reaches your knees, you fall and rollover, I had to go through quicksand walking over a thin table,” she said. “If you fall, you sink.”

She detailed her walk through the dangerous Darien Gap, the notorious journey from Colombia through Panama.

It’s not a path she wanted to take.

“This is something that if you do it, that’s because you really had no other choice, and that’s my case. I mean, I had no other choice,” she said.

No choice, she said, because she was afraid she was afraid she would die in Venezuela.

She said she was a government lawyer, helping try kidnapping cases. But after a year, she said she quit her job to join the protests against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

She protested with groups of people, including her ex-husband.

“There is an armed group in Venezuela called ‘Los Colectivos’ and what do they do? When you go out to protest, the government sends them, they are hooded, in motorcycles with their weapons and if they find you they take you,” she said.

Aguero said they kidnapped her ex-husband, who went missing for hours as he was beaten.

“They were looking for the protest leader,” she said.

She said that’s when she knew she and her daughter, Joseyli, had to leave, worried their lives were in danger.

“She is my engine. If it wasn’t for her I would’ve never done this,” she said.

Aguero came here and applied for political asylum well ahead of many migrants who recently came here.

She arrived more than a year ago. Still, she lives in a shelter, jobless, waiting for her asylum case and for enough time to pass to apply for work authorization.

“With the help of god, when I have my papers, I hope I can move to a quieter place.”

It’s a new life here. She’s working to learn English to one day try to become a lawyer here.

When it sometimes feels like all that is certain is uncertainty, she said she remembers she feels safe and free. And so does her daughter.