Editor's note: In this story, we’re not using the full names of asylum seekers, so we don’t jeopardize their asylum claims.
At 4 a.m., with only the light of a full moon, Maria, her mother and 1-year-old daughter, waded across the Rio Grande, a natural barrier between Mexico and the U.S.
After weeks of travel from their home in Venezuela, the three finally set foot on U.S. soil in Del Rio, Texas. With a group of other migrants, they turned themselves in to border patrol agents, with hopes of claiming asylum.
“It was scary for me,” Maria said, not knowing if she’d be able to protect her mother and daughter on the journey.
But what gave her comfort was the people around her — immigrants from various countries who all shared “the same dream.”
“When you find so many people in your same condition, it makes it easier,” she said.
Maria and her family arrived in the U.S. in December of 2021 — the tail end of a year where encounters at the southern border reached record highs. Many of them, like her, fled a mix of violence, poverty and political instability, risking their lives to come to the U.S. to apply for asylum. The protection allows them to stay in the country and opens up a pathway to citizenship.
But a large number of asylum seekers may not receive it or at least wait years not knowing what the outcome will be. Over a million individuals are waiting for their day in immigration court, stuck in a historic backlog.
But that uncertainty, at least, comes with hope – something Maria didn’t have in Venezuela.
The COVID-19 pandemic had exacerbated Venezuela's spiraling economy. Maria, who was an accountant, watched the businesses she worked for shut down one by one. She opened her own beauty supply store, but gang members asked her and other store owners to pay up.
“It was like extortion all the time,” she said.
Maria earned $40 a week, barely enough to cover the cost of her newborn daughter’s baby formula. She couldn’t afford groceries or her mother’s medication. Leaving was the only option, she said.
“When you have to start selling things from home … you have to sell the computers or sell the cars so you can keep the house, you realize that it’s not going to be better,” she said.
Maria had relatives in the Tampa Bay area and set her sights on the U.S. On their journey, she paid smugglers, immigration officials and law enforcement to let them make their way north. Sometimes she couldn’t tell the difference between them.
“They ask you for money, they ask you all the time, and that’s the scary part,” she said.
More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have left the country in the last decade, making it one of the largest displacement crises in the world. Most have escaped to neighboring Latin American countries like Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Chile.
But nearly 550,000 have settled in the U.S., and Florida is one of the top destinations. The Tampa Bay-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan area is home to one of the largest Venezuelan communities.
Upon their arrival in Tampa, Maria and her mother applied for asylum. By law, they’re required to submit their application within a year of their entry into the U.S. And, after 150 days, Maria was able to request a work permit and begin earning a living for her family.
But three years later, she has yet to see an immigration judge. She doesn’t even have a court date.
Typically, those who arrive at the border are given a Notice To Appear in court, signaling that they’ve been placed in removal proceedings. Their application for asylum is then used as a defense against their deportation. But amid an influx of arrivals, some people like Maria were not assigned an initial court appearance.
At the immigration office in Tampa, Maria said she scrolled endlessly through the portal looking for an appointment.
“I scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, and 2040 and I couldn't find an appointment…and you will get to 2050 and you will not find,” Maria said. “It’s like a lottery.”
For the moment, Maria is in limbo. When she asked immigration officials what to do, they told her:
“Well, you are not in the system yet, but you are here. They allow you to be here,” she recalls them saying, “So you just have to be good and appreciate everything at least.”
Maria said she believes in the process and she just has to be patient. For now, she found work at a screen printing shop in St. Petersburg. Her daughter will be in kindergarten next year, and she’s finally getting a hearing aid for her mom, a task that was all but impossible in Venezuela.
“This is the kind of life I want for my family right now,” she said.
She can only hope for the future too.
A broken system
An endless wait is the reality for many asylum seekers.
Florida, which has immigration courts in Orlando and Miami, tops the nation in the backlog, with about 178,000 pending cases. It will take about four years before asylum seekers even see an immigration court judge, on par with the national average, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
Jean Espinoza, an immigration lawyer in Lakeland, remembers a time when the crushing backlog didn’t exist.
“Before 2010 [if you] file for asylum, you will get your interview in three or four months. Their goal was to interview you before the five month window,” said Espinoza.
But since then, asylum case filings have climbed fairly steadily, save for a drop in 2021 following decreased migration due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the following year, new filings shot back up to a record high of 256,000, more than seven times the number in 2010.
The reasons why people are coming to the U.S. in record numbers are complicated. Many are fleeing humanitarian crises caused by political upheaval, natural disasters and poverty. Because there are few legal pathways to the country, many of those migrants seek to enter the country through the asylum process.
To quell the surge straining the border and overwhelming the immigration system, the Biden administration introduced severe restrictions in June, barring most who cross the border between ports of entry, like Maria did, from claiming asylum.
Since then, it’s led to a drop in new cases in immigration court. But unless there is comprehensive immigration reform, deterrence policies are a stop gap solution that don’t last long and fail to address the root causes of migration, according to immigration attorneys and advocates.
“I don't even know how they're going to resolve this backlog issue because there are not enough officers, there are not enough judges, not enough private practitioner lawyers,” said Espinoza, “I mean, that system has just collapsed.”
'Everything is destroyed, broken'
One of Espinoza’s clients, Lisandro, received asylum in 2023. He calls it a blessing.
We’re not using Lisandro’s full name because he still has family members in Venezuela, who may face persecution.
Lisandro was a successful mechanical engineer working in the oil industry, the source of the country’s once prosperous economy before the authoritarian regime took over. He watched as institutions like his alma mater, Zulia University, fell into disrepair. Nationwide power outages threw Venezuelans into periods of darkness. People were afraid to step out at night and risk being robbed or kidnapped.
Lisandro frequently posted his critiques of the government on social media.
“My ideas, my own way, I don’t want to change that. Never,” said Lisandro.
But voicing opposition can get you killed. One day, a friend in the army tipped him off – that his name was circulating amongst those working for President Nicolás Maduro. That’s when he and his family decided to leave.
“Only one suitcase per person and run away to U.S.A.” he said. “We left everything behind.”
They flew to Miami on a tourist visa, obtained before the U.S. shut down its embassy in Venezuela in 2019 when diplomatic relations between the two countries withered.
Settling in the Orlando area, Lisandro and his family applied for asylum, detailing the fear and political repression they experienced in their home country. Three years later, they were granted relief.
With asylum, Lisandro and his family can apply for a green card after a year to become lawful permanent residents.
Through tears, Lisandro recounted how some family members were not as lucky. A brother-in-law had hung himself to escape threats and scrutiny from the government. Some of his relatives who had made it to Florida as well have been waiting for an answer on their asylum claim for nine years.
He’s not sure what they would go back to. Everything in that country “is destroyed, is broken,” Lisandro said.
“I needed a better life for my family,” he said. “U.S.A is that place. I love U.S.A.”
Amid the wait, they build a life here
In the halls of the Christ Central Presbyterian Church in Tampa, children run after each other in a game of tag and call out in Spanish. Their parents sit at tables, eating a meal of pork paleta, plantains and rice prepared by a local nonprofit.
The Hispanic Services Council hosts a weekly workshop for Spanish-speaking families, teaching them how to navigate the public school system, healthcare and social services.
This community has grown over the years, partly due to immigration from overseas.
Edgar is here with his son, daughter-in-law and grandson. He was a former university professor, who fled Venezuela in 2018 when the government started cracking down on the school’s faculty union protests.
He was able to enter the U.S. with a tourist visa and apply for asylum, which he’s still waiting for. However, in the meantime, Edgar was able to receive temporary protected status or TPS, a designation that lets him stay in the U.S. temporarily because of conditions in a person’s home country.
With that protection, Edgar was able to bring his son’s family to the U.S. this February through parole, which allows them to stay for up to two years.
That brought relief, he said. His five-year-old grandson Matias needed medical treatment for a genetic condition. But in Venezuela, just the diagnostic test would have cost ten months of pay. Here in Tampa, Edgar and his son, Edwin, a former engineer, were able to find work as electricians and pay for Matias's medical needs.
But without something more stable, Edgar said, nothing is guaranteed.
“It’s temporary, all temporary,” Edgar said in Spanish. “The [U.S.] government can change, the politics and laws can change.”
He and over 240,000 other Venezuelans with TPS depend on whether the Department of Homeland Security decides to extend the designation, which currently ends in 2025.
Edwin and his wife say they hope to stay in the U.S. longer with work visas, but they’re not sure if that will pan out.
As Edgar waits for his asylum case to wind through the system, he worries about the outcome of this fall's presidential election and how immigration policies and enforcement can change under a new administration.
“It’s very clear who is and who is not in favor of the Latino community,” he said.
Asylum decisions depend on many factors, including the details of a person's case and the officer or court judge’s interpretation of whether it meets the threshold outlined in asylum law. But win rates can fluctuate under different administrations as well. During former president Donald Trump's term, asylum grant rates fell significantly.
Edgar kissed the top of Matias's forehead. The most important thing is seeing his family together, he said.
In the six years they were separated, he missed the birth of his grandson in Venezuela, something he’ll always regret. Now, holding him in his arms, he said he can’t bear the thought of missing anything else.
