Applying, becoming independent
NBC News spoke with five different Latino and immigration rights organizations in New York City that have been preparing to assist Venezuelans with their TPS applications and also providing legal and educational workshops and consultations.
Among the biggest groups doing this work are the New York Immigration Coalition, the Hispanic Federation and the New York Legal Assistance Group. There are also some smaller organizations providing crucial guidance to Venezuelans.
Project Rousseau, an organization offering immigration services, has helped nearly 200 asylum-seekers, many from Venezuela, file their TPS applications over the past week. They’re also organizing a TPS clinic later this month, hoping to submit 500 applications for about 100 families, said founder and executive director Andrew Heinrich. A similar event is also scheduled for Nov. 29.
Democrats who advocated for the latest TPS designation said it would improve the ability of Venezuelans, who are estimated to be half of the migrants coming into New York City, to become more independent and be less reliant on city services such as shelters.
“They will be able to get into the economic ecosystem of the city,” said Jesús Aguais, a Venezuelan native and the executive director of AID for AIDS, a group that has been working with Venezuelan asylum-seekers who now qualify for TPS.
“We will be able to fill [employment] positions in a legal way, people will be able to start paying taxes, and they will get out of the shelter system, although they are already getting out of the shelter system,” he said.
A local mandate requires New York City to provide shelter and basic services to anyone regardless of immigration status.
AID for AIDS holds educational workshops twice a week and legal clinics once a month with Venezuelan paralegals who fly in from Miami to provide culturally competent services as they apply for asylum, TPS and work permits, he said.
Niurka Meléndez, a Venezuelan asylum seeker and the director and founder of Venezuelans and Immigrants Aid, said that even with TPS or another kinds of deportation protections it’s still difficult to have “enough to buy a place or rent an apartment [and] show a credit history to be able to lease a place.”
Meléndez’s organization hosts virtual workshops with an attorney to explain the nuances of the different legal pathways migrants can seek when they arrive in the U.S. She said that oftentimes people from different states, and even Venezuela, listen in to then pass on the information to relatives who are heading to the U.S.
New York City officials have said they are also ramping up immigration case management efforts to be able to process the large number of applications.
They hope to “do hundreds of TPS appointments per day in November,” Masha Gindler, executive director of the New York City Asylum Application Help, said in a news conference Wednesday. “Our goal is to really make outreach to identify, screen and make appointments for all eligible Venezuelans by the end of the year.”
Deportations resume as protections expand
Only Venezuelans like Jhonnatan, who have been in the U.S. before the end of July, can apply for TPS — a protection currently available to other vulnerable populations from 15 other countries such as Ukraine and Afghanistan due to ongoing armed conflict and El Salvador and Nicaragua due to the impacts of environmental disasters.
The federal government said it will soon restart repatriation flights, after Venezuelan authorities agreed to accept the return of deported Venezuelan nationals who crossed the U.S. border unlawfully and were not able to establish a legal basis to remain in the U.S.
Jodi Ziesemer, director of the immigrant protection unit at the New York Legal Assistance Group, told NBC News she believes the repatriations will likely impact Venezuelans who recently arrived to the U.S. or who will be arriving without having a visa. Despite resuming deportations to Venezuela, immigration authorities must provide credible fear interviews to anyone looking to claim asylum.
Venezuelans who have arrived to the U.S. over the past two months may be vulnerable to deportation unless they are in the middle of applying for asylum or other protections, Ziesemer said.
The Biden administration had previously made TPS available to Venezuelans who arrived in the U.S. before March 9, 2021, and last year extended their protections to allow those migrants to remain in the U.S. until March 2024.
Those applying under the most recent designation will be able to remain in the U.S. until April 2025.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
