DeSantis' treatment of migrants divides Miami's Venezuelan community, the nation's largest
MIAMI -- Angelo Gomez walked across seven countries and a gang-infested jungle. He caught a ride through Mexico atop the train known as La Bestia, carrying a bucket of rocks for protection. Then he turned himself over to Border Patrol agents in Texas earlier this month, telling them he feared returning to Venezuela.
Gomez, 30, was the last holdout among his family, having stayed behind to guard their home from squatters in the capital, Caracas, after his parents fled to Peru and his sister journeyed to the U.S. nine months earlier. He had been a street vendor selling anything he could think of — doughnuts, flip-flops, tostones.
But when making enough money to eat became a daily gamble he, too, decided it was time to go.
"If it's not the colectivos," he said, referring to Venezuelan armed paramilitary groups, "it's hunger that will kill you."
On June 17, Gomez joined his sister at the two-bedroom Miami apartment she shares with nine other family members and friends. Soon after, he learned about a new law set to take effect Saturday that could change everything for immigrants without legal status.
Senate Bill 1718 was signed in May by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a hard-line conservative who has made cracking down on migration a centerpiece of his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. The
