Please Help Two Young Venezuelan Refugees Secure Temporary Protected Status in the United States
For those who have already donated, I'd be grateful if you would share this update with your networks
Gabriela and Andrés — two young Venezuelan refugees about whom I have previously written here and here — are going forward with their asylum applications. Without disclosing any confidential details, I can say that they have a potentially cognizable claim of persecution in their home country. But they’re living in Texas, where the approval rate for asylum applications hovers close to zero.
You can donate to the GoFundMe for Gabriela and Andrés here.
So it’s really important that they also apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) now that it has become available to Venezuelans who have been in the United States since on or before July 31. TPS will protect them from deportation in the event that they lose their asylum case. It will also give them access to work permits.
Imagine if you had to worry every day not only about food and rent, but about whether you would be sent back to a country that even the U.S. government says is not safe due to its humanitarian conditions. That is the situation in which Gabriela and Andrés find themselves.
But they need about $1,100 for the filing fees, and another $700 in lawyers’ fees. (I don’t want them to fall victim to a “notario” or “consultant” who might cheat them, but it’s also not really possible for them to navigate the application process on their own.)
Can you help me raise the $1,800 they need to apply for TPS? Every dollar helps, and I can’t afford to keep helping them on my own (I’m already paying the legal fees for their asylum applications). Please click here to make a donation of any amount.
Please also share this with your networks! This is a concrete way you can help two young immigrants who want only to live in safety in this country which purports to serve as a safe haven for those in need.
Please consider donating to the GoFundMe for Gabriela and Andrés at this link.