Why Venezuelans Are Seeking Political Asylum

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Coming up on today's show we'll have the United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy on the mental health crisis he sees in America today, especially among teenagers. We will take phone calls from parents and others concerned. We will also ask him to decode what his boss, President Biden, meant on 60 Minutes on Sunday when the president said the seemingly contradictory set of statements that "The pandemic is over." "We still have a problem with COVID." Wait, what?

The pandemic is changing, and he said everybody is doing great. He said those words. When 400 people a day are dying of COVID, and it hasn't gone down from that, for a national statistic, all summer. Surgeon General Dr. Murthy coming up second today.

With communication still limited from Puerto Rico, we will have a guest who's been in touch, but also invite your calls with what you're hearing after Hurricane Fiona, those of you with family members or others in Puerto Rico, and how other listeners can help. I know a lot of our good-hearted listeners want to know that. In our September edition of our year-long series, #BLTrees Today, how was your chosen tree changing as summer is coming to an end?

We begin here. For all the debate about the thousands of asylum seekers being sent from Texas to New York and Martha's Vineyard and other Democratic Party strongholds, most of that talk has been about the politics of using human beings as political footballs, and of how to handle the immediate housing crisis that so many new arrivals all together present. What I think has been missing from that picture is the stories of the asylum seekers themselves. If Venezuela is where so many of them being bused and flown are coming from, what's pushing people to the point of desperation to put themselves in these vulnerable positions, and what is the asylum application process actually like?

These are not mostly undocumented immigrants in the traditional sense, remember? Or people who just come across without a visa. They come and present themselves to the authorities as applicants for political asylum. What does that mean? Who would qualify and how? With me for this are Maryann Tharappel. She works with Catholic Charities here in New York. She's the attorney in charge of Immigrant and Refugee Services at Catholic Charities Community Services of the Archdiocese of New York, and William Neuman, who has covered Venezuela for much of the last decade for The New York Times.

He's now left The Times, but he's the author of the book he released this year about all of that called Things Are Never So Bad That They Can't Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela. Some of you will remember he was on for that book in the spring. Maryann and William, thanks for coming on to humanize what's mostly been a politics story. Welcome back, both of you, to WNYC.

Maryann: Thank you so much, Brian. It's a pleasure to be here this morning.

William: Thank you, Brian. Thanks for having me on.

Brian Lehrer: William, I'll start with you. Take us to Venezuela and briefly describe conditions there that are leading people to flee into this political morass in this country.

William: Sure. The economic collapse in Venezuela is almost inconceivable. The country's economy shrunk by 80% over a period of eight years. There was hyperinflation and malnutrition. On top of that, there was a political crisis and a lot of political repression, so a lot of the people who are coming and who have left Venezuela are economic refugees. In fact, more than six million Venezuelans have left the country over the last several years. That's more than a fifth of the population that the country had before the crisis.

After the pandemic there have been glimpses of economic growth again, which is a good thing because that means that people who are out of work and who couldn't feed their families had some opportunity to make some money and put some food on the table. More recently this year, we've seen a surge in Venezuelans leaving the country and coming overland. The numbers are just astonishing. The border patrol in August recorded 25,000, what they call encounters with Venezuelans coming over, and many of those turning themselves in seeking asylum. 25,000 in August this year. Two years ago in August, it was 125 people.

Many of those thousands of people are coming overland from Venezuela. They go through Colombia, then they have to cross an extremely dangerous part of the jungle in Panama called the Darién Gap, which is brutal terrain, river crossings, dangerous gangs that shake down or confront the refugees. Then they have to come up through Central America and Mexico with all the dangers that go along with that, and then they show up here. Basically, some of them have family here but many of them know nobody.

It reflects the desperation of people leaving Venezuela that they're willing to go through all that to come to some sort of unknown and not knowing what awaits them here in the US, but just with the hope that they can find a job and some sort of relief.

Brian Lehrer: That is a heck of a trip of a journey that you're describing. For people who don't know the map so well, you make the point that Venezuela is even further from the United States than some of the Central American countries we usually think of sending a lot of asylum seekers here like Guatemala and Nicaragua and Honduras, which are just below Mexico. You have to get through that narrow strip of Central America to get into South America proper, Venezuela. They have to come through Colombia, many of them, just to get to Central America, and then go through all those countries and then go through Mexico.

Maryann, are you hearing individual stories like that at Catholic Charities when you start to have contact with some of the Venezuelans coming here seeking legal services?

Maryann: Yes, Brian. Catholic Charities has been working with this population for many, many years. I can account for everything that William shared, but also through our work with the most recent busing of migrants from the southern border we are seeing a large number of Venezuelans, and many of them highlight a lot of the issues that William noted. Particularly in our work with this population, we're seeing individuals who have strong political opinion claims, anti-government political opinion claims.

Many of the individuals we've encountered are former employees of the government but did not agree with some of the actions and policies being put forward by the government and chose not to participate in rallies that were required for employees. Asserting their own political opinion in their country and facing retaliation threats and other forms of persecution as a result of their political beliefs. This issue continues to be a pervasive one throughout Central and South America.

Again, I want to highlight some of the points that William made regarding this population. In prior migration patterns, individuals did have family members with whom they could connect or friends here in the United States. This population largely does not. For us to contextualize that and create humanity around it, it's important to understand that these people are traveling this journey because they have no way to stay safely in their home country.

Venezuela currently is the third largest crisis in the world, and this population of individuals does not want to leave their country. They're proud to be Venezuelan. They want to remain in the safety of their community and homes, but that has become an impossibility. They take on the dangerous journey to come to the southern border and avail themselves of our government because they want to seek asylum here in the United States.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, who has a story to tell or a question to ask about what's driving all these asylum seekers, especially from Venezuela - but we will touch on a couple of other countries as we go, but especially from Venezuela for this conversation - to the United States right now as Texas and Florida make their political points by busing and flying many of them to New York, Martha's Vineyard and elsewhere? Again, this segment is not about those interstate partisan politics. This is about the asylum seekers themselves, the conditions they're fleeing, and the process of applying for political asylum in this country. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Maybe one or two of you asylum seekers yourselves who have arrived here recently from that country happen to have found WNYC and want to call in and tell your own story. 212-433-WNYC. Or anybody who knows anybody, or just anybody who came at any time from Venezuela. I know we have plenty of Venezuelan Americans in the audience on a regular basis, so help us report this story.

Tell us your story. Tell us the story of someone you know or ask a question. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433- 9692 for our guests William Neuman, former New York Times journalist covering Venezuela and with his new book, and Maryann Tharappel from Catholic Charities Immigrants and Refugees Legal Services. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Maryann, I bet some listeners would be curious to know how it works that you get involved with people arriving on these buses from Texas in recent months. If the focus of the media is on the search for immediate housing, how do you have first contacts with any of them over their legal status or asylum applications?

Maryann: Great question, Brian. The way that our agency Catholic Charities first began to engage with this population of bus migrants is that many of them actually had immigration documentation that had erroneously listed Catholic Charities' address as the individual's residential and mailing address. These individuals were told that if they avail themselves of Catholic Charities' assistance that we would provide them with a safe place to stay, shower, food, potential job opportunities, and of course, immigration legal representation.

These individuals showed up at our offices. At our central office in Midtown Manhattan at 1011 First Avenue, at our Immigrant and Refugee Services office in Downtown Manhattan at 80 Maiden Lane, and also have been showing up at our parish network across New York State. This is our first encounter with that population, and that steady drum of individuals seeking our services has not abated. We've also been working with this population through our partnerships with the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs here in New York City to help receive these individuals at Port Authority and ensure that they are effectively connected to services, both health and social mental health services, and also legal services.

Brian Lehrer: Oh wow. You're there from moment one. Some of your people are at Port Authority when the buses come in, you're saying?

Maryann: We've had volunteers join forces with the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs at Port Authority. More importantly, we're working with the city at their new Asylum Seeker Resource Navigation Center that was recently announced last week, which is operating as a one-stop shop for immigrant asylum seekers to come and receive both case management services as well as legal services, and have access to a host of city services including Department of Education, Department of Health and Mental Health services, adult and children services, Metro Health Plus, IDNYC, and many others.

In fact, right now I'm calling in from the Asylum Seeker Center, and it has been quite a privilege to be at the frontline in working with this population. My staff have been here since the opening of the center and meeting with individuals about their legal claims. Ensuring that they are in fact informed and advised about how to stay responsible regarding upcoming deadlines and actions that are necessary in their immigration court proceedings, and ensuring that they are connected effectively to immigration and customs enforcement.

We've been working tirelessly to change the erroneous addresses that this population is facing so that they can effectively receive mail at a correct address and remain in contact in what is truly their only pathway for due process before the immigration court.

Brian Lehrer: We'll bring William back in here in a second, but let me follow up on two of the things you said there. This thing about listing Catholic Charities in New York as the address of the people who are being put on buses in some cases, that was one of the reasons we had you on earlier this summer. I can say earlier this summer for a few more hours. That was so weird when we first heard that. That without your knowledge they were listing Catholic Charities as the new mailing address for some of the people who Governor Greg Abbott of Texas was sending to New York.

Have you actually gotten a lot of mail for people who-- I don't know. From Venezuela or whatever the home country is thinking, "Oh, that's their new address. It's Catholic Charities, Maiden Lane, Lower Manhattan."

Maryann: Yes. Even now we continue to receive mail for individuals we have never encountered, have never provided services to, and certainly do not represent, listing the individual's name, our telephone number, and our address as the residential mailing address on their immigration court paperwork. As recent as this week, we have received numerous hearing notices that indicate that this address practice has not stopped yet. Initially, we were receiving many, many, many notices. Over 50 a day, several hundred over the course of two weeks.

At this point, it has trickled to being less than 20 per day and a total of less than 60 per week usually, but the issue and the practice has not stopped. Catholic Charities continues to engage in national advocacy to ensure that this practice does cease at the southern border.

Brian Lehrer: You listed all kinds of services and city agencies that you help people get in contact with when they arrive in the city. Mayor Adams was talking about the other day, has set up this resource center that helps connect people not just to legal services but these other services. Let me pick one that was on the list that you ticked off. You said Department of Education. So many of these arrivals are families. Are the kids going to school?

Maryann: That is the primary goal of the center. Over the course of the past two weeks, individuals were prioritized who had children to actually connect onsite with the Department of Education for school enrollment. The city of New York and Catholic Charities are prioritizing ensuring that every child that has recently arrived here in New York is enrolled in school. Yes, that is one of the key priorities that is being offered here at the service center

Brian Lehrer: William Neuman, going back to your expertise on Venezuela, in your earlier answer you laid out an eight-year-long story of economic collapse in this country. I'm curious if something has changed recently because I think what we heard earlier in the year, earlier in the Biden administration, and through the Trump administration was largely about asylum seekers from Guatemala and Honduras, right? Now it seems more from Venezuela. At least that's what's in the news. Did something change recently to increase the refugee flow from there?

William: Thanks, Brian. Yes, I think a few things have happened recently. One, I think partly what we're seeing is a post-pandemic effect. Millions of Venezuelans left the country before the pandemic, and the vast majority of those stayed in South America. There are close to two million Venezuelans living in Colombia. Many have gone to Peru, Brazil, and other countries. A much smaller number at that time were coming to the US. I think for a lot of people they had family in other countries in South America, and it was a more familiar environment to them.

Then during the pandemic a lot of that movement was frozen, and now that the pandemic has lightened up you're seeing a tremendous movement. I think one factor may be that after Biden came in in 2021, he gave Venezuelans what's called temporary protected status. That meant that Venezuelans who had entered the country before early March 2021 were allowed to stay in the United States on a temporary basis. I think a lot of people may have heard that or not understood that newcomers weren't going to be extended that same status. I think that's only a small factor.

What we're seeing in Venezuela now is just the accumulation of this pent-up need of people there and this pent-up desperation. Right now the Venezuelan minimum wage is about $20 a month. A group that tracks the cost of living there and has done so for years calculates that a family of five needs $470 to put food on the table for a month. You compare that to a $20 minimum wage, and that's a pretty good indication of the level of desperation of people. I think there may have also been people felt a sigh of relief last year as the economy started to improve, and earlier this year, but since then that improvement really hasn't been spread throughout the economy or throughout the population.

The poorest people haven't really felt a lot of relief. I think maybe there was a sense that things were getting better and then suddenly they weren't. Inflation started to spike and the devaluation of the currency continued, so people are just desperate. For years there have been just basic services problems. There's no running water in many areas, electrical blackouts, and people just-- I think they reach a breaking point.

I think another factor also is related to the pandemic because so many South American countries were so hard-hit by the pandemic, so that became less of an option. Going to Colombia and staying there wasn't so much of an option anymore, and people started heading north.

Brain Lehrer: That is such interesting--

William: I've also seen an increase in Nicaraguans and Cubans coming into the country, which is interesting even as the number of essential Americans has decreased overall.

Brain Lehrer: We have to take a break, but when we come back I want to follow up on that because you would think that Nicaraguans and Cubans and Venezuelans, all from left-wing governments, in some cases - at least two of those cases - left-wing authoritarian government, would be of great sympathy to Republican leaders in this country. Yet it's largely the Venezuelans and the Cubans who are being used as political pawns right now. I want to get your political take on that.

We will continue also by taking your calls. I see we have a pro bono immigration lawyer calling in. We have somebody who wants to correct how I referred to how far Venezuela is from the United States and more. Then in 10 minutes the US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. Stay with us.

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Brain Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue for another few minutes talking about the actual stories of the actual people who are the refugees, or at least people seeking political asylum - we'll call them that - coming primarily from Venezuela right now. We're hearing so much about the politics of Adams versus Greg Abbott, Ron DeSantis versus Martha's Vineyard, all that. What about the people involved and what is this political asylum process, and what are these conditions that they're fleeing?

Our guests are Maryann Tharappel, director of legal services at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, and William Neuman, author of Things Are Never So Bad That They Can't Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela.

Now let's see. On Twitter, one of the first tweets we got wanted to correct me. Where did that one go? Let's see. This one. It says, "You said Venezuela is further from the United States than Central American countries. The proper word is farther. You should know that." Thank you for that correction. Let's take a phone call. Fannie in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Fannie.

Fannie: Hi, Brian. How are you? I am not an immigration lawyer, but I have represented someone who came from Uganda a couple of years ago and I had got her recognized as a political asylee. This was under the Trump administration no less. When she came with an airplane, as you well know, she was immediately put in a detention center and she spent over six to eight months there. The case was actually pretty difficult to prove. As everybody knows, or maybe everybody doesn't know that, but an immigration court is not like a regular court. You have to prove every step of the way why you have a claim to stay here. Why you deserve protection.

Now, it was mentioned that from Venezuela lot of these people are applying for political asylum, but it has to be extremely specific and you have to prove your fear of persecution personally. If there's masses of people claiming the same thing, I was just wondering how successful these cases can be. From a legal point of view, that's one question. Secondly, do you have enough attorneys and lawyers doing representation? Because I know that it makes a massive difference. The statistics in terms of how successful you can be with a political or any kind of filing claim is that unless you have an attorney your chances are near zero.

Brain Lehrer: Fannie, thank you. I'm going to leave it there with you for time, but those are two great questions. Maryann, I want to throw them to you. I want to give you the context of a couple of more tweets that have come in that are kind of saying the same thing. One of them says, "Fair to say that everyone in Venezuela, Guatemala, et cetera, are suffering terribly. Is the solution to transfer their populations into this country?" The way another person puts it is, "Every broke person is headed here. Venezuela, isn't that an OPEC member? I thought being broke doesn't qualify one to stay here."

What would you say to those tweeters? Even William before put it that they are largely economic refugees before you started to talk about the political situations. What actually qualifies someone for political asylum?

Maryann: Great question, Brian. I think all of the points that were made by the caller are important ones. Asylum is a very specific analysis of an individual person's circumstances, the experiences that they had in their home country, and obviously their cognizability within the community that they fit as to whether their particular social group, for example, is one of the constructs that are able to be used to seek asylum. It is one of the five protected grounds. For example, domestic violence survivors are considered a particular social group for asylum claims. Political opinion is only one of five of the options of how an individual can qualify for asylum.

It is correct that widespread economic disparity and issues of economic success within a country are not solely enough to qualify for asylum. Similarly, widespread criminal enterprise and criminal activity throughout a country are also not enough to show that an individual can qualify for asylum. That individualized claim of either having endured past persecution or having a well-founded fear of future persecution is essential. That that fear is linked to one of the five protected grounds: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.

The Venezuelan community that we've been encountering through the recent busing from the southern border to New York shows that this population does have a number of viable claims. We've seen individuals with LGBTQI claims. We've seen individuals with domestic violence survivor claims. We've seen individuals that have family group claims as well, and individuals who have political opinion claims. We've also seen individuals who fall into the category of individuals like William and the callers and the tweeters have identified. Individuals who are here because they feel that they have no economic options in Venezuela.

We advise each individual on their particular circumstances, and this is why the need for increased capacity of immigration legal service provision for this population is so essential. Because asylum claims are so individualized, ensuring that each person in fact does have access to immigration advocates who can guide them and assess their particular circumstances and inform them about whether they do have a viable claim for asylum and how to move forward, is a key component in this work.

Brain Lehrer: I've read that like two-thirds of political asylum applications fail. Is that your experience?

Maryann: I want to underscore what the caller highlighted. That the access to representation component is a key source of success before the immigration court. Over 75% of individuals who proceed before the immigration court without representation in fact are ordered removed and do not have relief granted by the court. Having an advocate with you in the court process. Someone who's able to both formulate the claim, teach you on how to present it effectively to the court. Work with you on developing the evidentiary package that has to be associated to substantiate the claim. Copious amounts of country condition evidence to support the claim.

Working with experts like William to have them come and testify in court to support those claims. All of those components are essential for being able to really be successful before the court.

Brain Lehrer: To the caller, Fannie in Brooklyn, who said she was a lawyer and seemed to imply that she was available to volunteer, or for any lawyers out there who might want to do a little extra pro bono work, do you accept volunteer lawyers at Catholic Charities?

Maryann: Oh, absolutely. We have one of the most robust cadres of pro bono volunteer advocates in the state. Brian, I'd happily share information on how to sign up to volunteer with Catholic Charities, either with our work here at the Asylum Seeker Center or to take a case under our mentorship for an asylum seeker who is facing removal before the immigration court. We welcome volunteers and would be happy to connect with Fannie and others like her who are looking to get involved in this work.

Brain Lehrer: By the way, a new Twitter response to those other tweeters who said, "All the poor people from difficult countries want to come here. What are we going to do, take them all in?" Another person tweets back at them. "I would ask those tweeters why their families came here." I'll leave that as a rhetorical question and take one more phone call. Frances in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Frances.

Frances: Hey. How are you, Brian? I just wanted to give a little story. My nanny, who's been with us since my daughter was four months old - my daughter is five and a half now - is actually not my nanny anymore because my daughter is in school, but she came here looking for political asylum. She was a student in Venezuela. She was involved in a protest where she was injured, and she came over quite quickly after that. The whole time that she was with us she went straight to immigration. She went through the entire process.

She even had meetings out in Long Island that she had to get to - two and a half hours to get there - and they would turn her away telling her that she didn't have the appropriate paperwork each time. She's online finishing her degree from Venezuela, and still, five and a half years later, she does not have her-- Well, she actually just last year got denied because now they're saying, "Well, it's been so long. Those same political issues that you had aren't valid because those people are no longer at the university."

It takes three and a half, four years to actually get there, and then when you get there they're saying you don't have a problem. Somebody asked, "Well, what kind of situation was she in back home?" Economically obviously it's quite core. Her father is an engineer. Her father doesn't have any work, so we've had to send generators back to them. Generators that get lost in a port and then we have to send another one. Her sister also is an engineer who doesn't have a job. She's come over in the summer to New York and stayed with us, and flipped burgers at a burger joint, cleaned bars at night. Meanwhile, she has twin four-year-old girls that she had to leave behind.

A mother who has to leave behind her twin girls, and she got stuck here for six months during COVID because the flights were shut down. This is the kind of desperation they're facing. I just want to say meanwhile she has now entered back in school. She is going all the way through the process. She has her associate's degree. She's going to be a lawyer. This is the kind of perseverance these people have that I think should also be taken into account.

Brian Lehrer: It's an inspiring story that you tell, and also just fleshes out the humanity by talking about somebody from this one country that we've been focusing on and what they've been going through while most of the coverage is about the politics. William, I want to end with this because this has been mostly to focus on the people, not the Texas and Florida versus New York and Martha's Vineyard political theater, but I will ask you this one political question. Venezuela is a left-wing authoritarian government under Maduro, previously Hugo Chávez. Like Cuba under the Castros. I would think these would be the most sympathetic possible asylum seekers to the Republican right.

Cubans in Miami have historically voted GOP because they're more staunchly anti-communist and anti-socialist; we all know that. What's up, as you understand it, with Abbott and DeSantis picking on the nationality of their own communities' voters here?

William: Well, all of these countries, Venezuela and Cuba in particular, have been political fodder, especially for Republicans but in particular focused on the Florida electorate for a long time. What I used to say is that under Trump the US didn't have a Venezuela foreign policy. It had a Florida electoral strategy that used Venezuela. For four years you had Trump making a lot of noise over Venezuela, placing heavy sanctions on the Venezuelan economy, threatening to invade Venezuela. None of that did anything to improve conditions inside Venezuela, but it did help him gain votes among certain Hispanic voters in four--

Brian Lehrer: This is the opposite, and DeSantis wants to run for president.

William: Yes, but what I'm saying is it's the same idea in the sense that these people are there to be used for political purposes. None of what Trump did was designed to help Venezuelans or improve the situation in Venezuela. It was simply opportunistic.

Brian Lehrer: All right.

William: You could say something similar for the Democrats now because what the US has is these heavy economic sanctions on Venezuela. The cause of the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela is the economic collapse, which was caused by bad policy in Venezuela but exacerbated by the US sanctions. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: There we have to leave it as the last word because we are out of time. William Neuman, former New York Times whose new book is called Things Are Never So Bad That They Can't Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela, and Maryann Tharappel, attorney in charge of Immigrant and Refugee Services at Catholic Charities Community Services of the Archdiocese of New York. Thank you very much for helping us to humanize this story.

Maryann: Thank you, Brian.

William: Thank you, Brian.

 

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