Senior Sara Perez Penaloza looks at the Colombian landscape as a child. “While the changes in immigration policy don’t directly affect my family, it still affects our opinion of the government,” Perez said. (Submitted Photo: Sara Perez)
Junior Marcos Rodriguez and his family fled Venezuela in a frenzy. Rodriguez said he can still remember the rushed good-byes he gave his close friends and family. It took a total of two weeks for a once full home, bustling with activity to be swallowed by the quiet, empty with the weight of farewells—the ones both said and the ones left unsaid. Rodriguez said he often recalls the reasons he and his family decided to immigrate to the United States in such a hurry.
“About three years ago my family and I moved from Venezuela to the United States,” Rodriguez said. “In Venezuela my father received threats and was extorted, and a lot of these threats revolved around our family, so within a period of two weeks we left (Venezuela). I didn’t get to say goodbye to so many people. Not to most of my cousins, grandparents, aunts or uncles, because it was an emergency and we had to leave fast.”
Rodriguez is part of a growing trend of immigration to the United States, whether that be to flee persecution in home countries, as in Rodriguez’s case, or in search of new opportunities. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2023, the immigrant population in the United States was at an all time high with 47.8 million foreign born individuals, encompassing about 14.3% of the United States’ population. Furthermore, according to the Congressional Budget Office, net immigration is projected to be around 2 million people this year.
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