(Left) Daríana Perdigón, initially from Venezuela, and her new child Dariangelys and (Right) Magdala Ciceron together with her youngster Amaya, pose for portraits within the maternity care unit on the Roosevelt Hotel.

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(Left) Daríana Perdigón, initially from Venezuela, and her new child Dariangelys and (Right) Magdala Ciceron together with her youngster Amaya, pose for portraits within the maternity care unit on the Roosevelt Hotel.

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When Roukhaya discovered that she was pregnant, she was nonetheless dwelling within the African nation of Chad.

When she discovered it was a woman, that is when she says she knew it was time to go away.

In Chad, she explains, feminine genital mutilation continues to be practiced. Roukhaya and her husband are each docs, they usually suppose it’s brutal. I ask if she herself was subjected to it. She nods quietly.

“I don’t want that for my daughter,” she says.

(NPR doesn’t establish survivors of sexual violence, so we’re withholding Roukhaya’s final identify.)

In the final yr or so, over 100,000 migrants from everywhere in the world have come to New York City. Some, like Roukhaya, are pregnant, and searching for shelter. NPR hung out with a number of of those girls, their infants, and the group of docs, nurses and social employees who help them.

People sit in the primary foyer, ready to undergo the medical and administrative arrival course of within the Roosevelt Hotel, which has been transformed into the primary processing middle for migrants arriving in New York City.

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People sit in the primary foyer, ready to undergo the medical and administrative arrival course of within the Roosevelt Hotel, which has been transformed into the primary processing middle for migrants arriving in New York City.

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Estefani (final identify withheld), from Venezuela, holds her daughter’s footwear whereas on the maternity care unit of the Roosevelt Hotel.

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Estefani (final identify withheld), from Venezuela, holds her daughter’s footwear whereas on the maternity care unit of the Roosevelt Hotel.

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Roukhaya’s first cease was on the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan. It’s town’s Arrival Center — the entry level to New York for all migrants to be registered and entry shelters and authorized and medical companies.

The resort retains an air of Twenties opulence: huge work, glittering chandeliers and sprawling stairways. But nowadays, it serves as a type of modern-day Ellis Island. The nationwide guard watches over whereas hundreds of migrants wait to obtain medical evaluations and immunizations.

Roukhaya was despatched to The Women’s Health Medical Center at Bellevue Hospital, a part of New York’s Health + Hospitals, which is town’s public well being system. This is the place most migrant girls are seen for OB-GYN care.

Staff there informed NPR that one of many largest issues is the shortage of prenatal care in among the new arrivals. That’s a priority that some sufferers share too.

(Left) Yuniaski López, from Venezuela, poses for a portrait within the maternity care unit on the Roosevelt Hotel. (Right) Balloons are caught on the ceiling on the resort.

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“It worried me,” says Yuniaski López. She apologizes for her voice sounding just a little hoarse and explains that she’s simply exhausted. López is in her mid-20s. She jokes that again residence in Venezuela, her mother-in-law was all the time insisting on a grandchild. She and her husband would inform López that it was not a great time to have a toddler, between the nation’s dire financial disaster and authorities repression.

López says the journey to the U.S. was almost unimaginable. “It was so rough,” she says. “Especially the jungle. All of it. The train … it was too difficult. I could hardly bear it. I slept in the streets. I often didn’t have enough to eat.”

So it scared her when she arrived within the U.S. and discovered she’d been pregnant your entire time.

Staff at Bellevue say they’re keenly conscious that the journey to the U.S. is very harrowing for ladies.

People strolling within the foyer of Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.

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People strolling within the foyer of Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.

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Dr. Natalie Davis sits in her workplace at Bellevue Hospital.

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Dr. Natalie Davis sits in her workplace at Bellevue Hospital.

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In one of many rooms on the Roosevelt Hotel, a lady named Estefani is jovial and talkative. Except when she will get to this a part of her story. She stares down at her fingers and says: “They got me on my way up.”

Estefani and her husband are additionally from Venezuela. She’s a nurse, however it was laborious to make ends meet with a brand new child. She says that in Venezuela, in case you have a child, you need to select: Are you going to present them lunch? Or dinner? It most likely cannot be each.

She was using the prepare by way of Mexico when she was assaulted. Her pal acquired damage badly. She says she does not thoughts speaking about it, however she does not have far more to say. “I don’t think about the journey. Or what happened there. I focus on my daughter.”

Many sexual assaults occur additional south, within the dangerous jungle straddling Colombia and Panama referred to as the Darién Gap. According to Doctors Without Borders, sexual assaults on migrant girls and women crossing the area are prevalent.

“I’ve met moms who are pregnant as a result of a rape that they’ve experienced during their migration, which is just so difficult,” says Dr. Natalie Davis, affiliate medical director of ambulatory girls’s well being companies at Bellevue. “They’re carrying a baby that is a product of a trauma they had along the way.”

Michele Maron-Knobel is part of the group of physicians and social employees who’re offering assist and assets for migrant girls who’ve not too long ago arrived to New York throughout their pregnancies, in addition to postpartum care. (Right) A migrant mom holds her daughter’s hand as she feels her pregnant abdomen.

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When a affected person mentions assault, Health + Hospitals says they’re supplied with emotional assist as wanted. “First, just giving them the space to talk about it, I think that’s key,” says Michele Maron-Knobel, the social work supervisor for Bellevue’s Women’s Health Clinic. For all sufferers who’re lower than 24 weeks pregnant, there is a dialogue about whether or not the being pregnant is desired. “We even have an in-house victims companies program, the Program for Survivors of Torture,” says Maron-Knobel. “Right now they have an extensive waiting list, which is frustrating.”

Even for sufferers who have not skilled this stage of trauma, it is an all-hands-on-deck scenario simply to get the fundamentals lined. Throughout New York City, mutual aid groups have been essential in aiding moms with food, clothing, toys, first aid and diapers.

Bellevue refers households to businesses that present assist for first-time mothers, being pregnant assist teams, and materials wants for households. Still, people at Bellevue say, they’re stretched skinny and feeling the strain. “We need more staff,” says Maron-Knobel. “It’s just not tenable.”

Maria Vazquez talks with a affected person on the Maternity Care Unit at Bellevue Hospital.

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Maria Vazquez talks with a affected person on the Maternity Care Unit at Bellevue Hospital.

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Maria Vazquez poses for a portrait in a scientific suite at Bellevue Hospital.

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Maria Vazquez poses for a portrait in a scientific suite at Bellevue Hospital.

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The instability of the ladies’s dwelling conditions makes even the straightforward issues a herculean effort. Maria Vasquez, head nurse of the Women’s Clinic at Bellevue, says many sufferers do not have a cellphone and are being shuttled round from shelter to shelter. “That has become a problem for us, following the patient. Where have they moved? The number one concern is that the patient come back to us, and continue bringing their babies here.”

Davis says her workers has come to care deeply about these girls, and there’s additionally a variety of hope right here. “These women are strong. It’s incredible to think they walked through the jungle. They somehow made it here. They’ve survived. And this child is kind of a new chance for hope in a new country. And that kind of keeps me going.”

In the final yr, New York Health + Hospitals says it has assisted with 300 infants born to asylum-seekers.

Some New Yorkers say it’s an egregious spending of taxpayer money.

Others say it is town’s humanitarian obligation, a part of the quintessential American story.

Two girls chat as they wait to be assigned to a shelter, within the foyer of the Roosevelt Hotel.

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Two girls chat as they wait to be assigned to a shelter, within the foyer of the Roosevelt Hotel.

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Liz, from Peru, can also be a affected person at Bellevue’s Women’s Health Clinic. Here, she explains the lit candles to her daughter in a church in Midtown Manhattan. She does not like to go away her room on the resort, however as her due date nears she tries to get out and stroll. Her favourite place to go to is that this church, the place she hopes to baptize her youngest kids.

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Liz, from Peru, can also be a affected person at Bellevue’s Women’s Health Clinic. Here, she explains the lit candles to her daughter in a church in Midtown Manhattan. She does not like to go away her room on the resort, however as her due date nears she tries to get out and stroll. Her favourite place to go to is that this church, the place she hopes to baptize her youngest kids.

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And within the dimly lit, unusually magnificent ready rooms of the Roosevelt Hotel, it is unimaginable to not marvel: Where do these individuals’s tales finish?

A number of days in the past, Yuniaski López, the hoarse-voiced girl who was anxious about having been pregnant on the journey, gave start to a wholesome child boy.

Estefani, the lady from Venezuela who shared about her assault, expresses a common want: “I’d love to be who I used to be.” At the very least, she’d prefer to work as a nurse once more. Maybe taking good care of the aged.

The Biden administration not too long ago extended TPS, or Temporary Protected Status, to some Venezuelans. And, New York state has announced a program for eligible migrants, which guarantees to open hundreds of jobs in industries the place there are labor shortages. This might imply López would possibly get a piece allow.

People stroll previous the Roosevelt Hotel, which has been transformed to the primary processing middle for migrants arriving to New York City.

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People stroll previous the Roosevelt Hotel, which has been transformed to the primary processing middle for migrants arriving to New York City.

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Families chat within the hallway on the maternity care unit within the Roosevelt Hotel.

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Families chat within the hallway on the maternity care unit within the Roosevelt Hotel.

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For Roukhaya, the lady from Chad, there’s not such a transparent path. Her child woman was born a number of days in the past. In Arabic her identify means “love in the sky.” Roukhaya sadly observes that she wants a 15-year reprieve: girls generally get circumcised between birth and 15 years of age. In the meantime, she’s hoping to get asylum, however she’ll be becoming a member of over a million applicants who are awaiting processing.

As she breastfeeds, she leans in, and places her face to her child’s brow. The chaos of the resort appears to vanish, and Roukhaya repeats a type of mantra:

“For her I will do it. For her, I will do everything. Everything possible. Everything.”