As many of you know, Becki and Francisco Barrios have been helping family members from Venezuela to be able to come to the United States in a safe and legal manner. Unfortunately, life in Venezuela is no longer safe or stable. The Barrios family's work has already changed many lives. More than 20 family members have come to the United States, found full-time employment, and begun new lives. People have asked how they can help Becki and Francisco to continue to help family members move to the United States. This, as you can imagine, is very expensive. Until now, Becki and Francisco have been paying all of this out of their own pockets. It costs them about $10,000 per person that they help to come to the United States. This includes airfare, legal expenses, transportation, healthcare and basic necessities such as food, clothing, beds, etc. to get them started. They have used all of their resources to help others to have better lives and have now had to put off bringing more of their family members and close acquaintances here. The Venezuelan people who are moving to the United States with the help of the Barrios family are able to legally work upon arriving. Becki and Francisco have jobs waiting for each person that comes here. They begin working a few days after arriving. They stay with Becki and Francisco in their home until they are making enough money to rent a place to live. Then they move out and the Barrios family brings more people over. They are also enrolling everyone in English classes and the children that they bring over are going to school. Francisco has 6 brothers and 3 sisters, most of whom are married and have children. So you can imagine the amount of people that are in need of help! So far they have been able to bring over 27 people, all of whom have at least one full-time job (sometimes 2 or 3), a car, and a place to live! This is a quick summary of what is happening in Venezuela from the Barrios family: Venezuela holds the largest oil reserves of any country in the world. It used to be a beautiful, thriving tourist attraction with a democratic government. Hugo Chavez took over power in Venezuela in 1999. One of the first things he did was to let many prisoners out of jail and these became the people who worked in the government. Francisco sadly left the country in 2005 because it was no longer the country he loved. He came here with $300 in his pocket, $100 of which he spent on a taxi to take him from JFK airport to Connecticut where he began his new life. Nicolas Madura became the president of Venezuela in 2013 when Chavez died. Maduro has continued to imprison civic, military and political leaders and has used the distribution of food as a tool for social control. The Maduro regime continues to disregard and repress the voices of the Venezuelan people in their calls for a return to democracy. Thousands of people have died of starvation and lack of medicine and decent healthcare during this time. Water and electricity are only available several hours during the day. Francisco's family has to travel to Colombia to buy medicine that they need. Most people do not even have money to buy simple things like flour and sugar to make food to eat. The only police in the country are those who protect the government leaders, so there is rampant crime and even some of Francisco's neighbors were killed for no reason in the small town of Bocono where he grew up. Venezuela is now consistently named the most dangerous country in the world, where the capital city of Caracas has one of the largest homicide rates in the world. Francisco thought he would never see his family again, and Becki thought she would never meet his family. Last year in October, the US government recognized the atrocities that were happening and the plight of the Venezuelan people and created a plan to help. When Francisco and Becki found out about this they cried and thanked God for this chance to help their family. If you would like to donate to help them to bring more family members out of Venezuela, it would be very appreciated and any amount will help. All money donated will be used for this purpose.
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