How NY nonprofit helps hundreds of
asylum seekers find new life in U.S.

It’s been almost five years since Katherin Garcia escaped her home country of Venezuela, uprooting her life as a family doctor and trudging through seven different countries to reach
the United States.

She recounts living in constant fear about being persecuted because of her profession in the health sector and her political views against the government.

Armed groups aligned with the government saw her as a traitor and targeted her family.

 

Eventually her husband Raul was attacked, and she realized they'd never be safe if they stayed in their home country.

 

Garcia and her husband left Venezuela in 2018 with their 1-year-old son Jeremias. The young family arrived in the U.S. in August of this year.

“I was facing danger in my country,” Garcia said in Spanish. “To have to leave your comfort, your life, your profession and take on a voyage of more than seven countries, a jungle... I
think we’re very brave.”

She was given shelter shortly after arriving at the Roosevelt Hotel — serving as the epicenter for asylum seekers in New York City. Within weeks, she filed for political asylum and has
received help from Venezuelans and Immigrants Aid (VIA), a nonprofit focused on providing orientation to new arrivals. Numerous NYC nonprofits are helping address new flows of
migration and assisting asylum seekers in getting acclimated to life in a new country.

Helping hands guide asylum seekers to self-sufficiency

VIA was founded in 2016 by Niurka Meléndez and her husband Héctor Arguinzones.

 

Venezuelan asylum seekers themselves, the two started the organization after experiencing the hardships firsthand. The two applied for asylum in the U.S. in 2016 and have been
waiting ever since.

Other asylum seekers in their community could use help navigating that long and complicated process, they realized.

 

“No one had to tell me about the process, I lived it," said Meléndez in Spanish.

 

The organization focuses on legal orientation and humanitarian assistance through raising awareness of legal and humanitarian resources.

A few times a month, VIA hosts lawyers who give information sessions on how to navigate the asylum seeking process. They believe managing your immigration status needs to take
priority because of the timely nature of many immigration forms that are not always presented to new arrivals.

“We understand that there’s a need for many migrants beyond to have clothes, food [and] a MetroCard,” Melendez said. “To establish your immigration status will give you independence and self-sufficiency so that you don’t have to wait for anyone.”

 

Aside from legal orientations, VIA also provides services such as:

 

• Emotional support through psychologists and group sessions

• English classes through volunteer teachers

• Cultural community programs that connect migrants to each other

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The programs operate on a recurring 10-day cycle.

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Quarterly, VIA offers a program called “Dando una Mano,” or Giving a Hand, where they will donate food, clothes and other necessities to families in need. They do this by reaching out to
families, documenting their specific needs and going out and buying in bulk. This also serves as an incentive to get more families to listen to the information they need, Meléndez said.

Local church a home base for hundreds to learn about U.S. life

 

Though they may not have an established center for their operations, St. Paul and St. Andrew United Methodist Church has opened its doors every Monday for orientation sessions.
K Karpen, senior pastor at the church expressed how their partnership with VIA has been “extremely fantastic."

Starting a little over a year ago, the weekly meetings have attracted hundreds of people. The weekly service has surged in attendees hoping to learn more about asylum cases and receive
other resources the church provides such as discounted MetroCards and clothes.

As newcomers began arriving from the southern border on buses last year, the church began collaborating with VIA to respond to their needs more holistically.

The nonprofit had to start placing a cap of 100 families per week to ensure it could provide their best services to attendees.

In the past, the group utilized video formats to help as many newcomers as possible — now, they livestream some of their informational sessions and provide these and other video
material on YouTube and social media.

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“Our Instagram account is one of our main offices,” Mélendez said. “That consistency is what causes people to find you because you’re always there — either virtual or in-person. It creates a foundation of trust.”

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Fighting misinformation about the asylum seeker's journey

Meléndez says that the profile of new arrivals has changed in the past few years and she has found herself having to debunk a lot of false information.

“New arrivals are coming with a false perspective, very disoriented and falsely informed,” Meléndez said. “This misinformation has made us adapt to migrants that are starting from zero.”

For many who were brought by human traffickers and guides, they were fed misinformation of the reality of newcomers, Mélendez said. They believe that arriving in the U.S. grants them automatic asylum. That is not the case.

 

“It’s very different to escape your country and be a forced migrant than to come here in search of a dream,” Meléndez said.

According to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services website, to apply for asylum, one must do so within one year of arriving in the U.S. Without this application, a person is not
considered an asylum seeker.

To seek asylum, a person needs to have suffered persecution or fear due to things like race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.

“They say the asylum seeking process is broken,” Mélendez said.

 

“It’s a truth that the governors and mayors are discovering now, but it’s disrespectful to asylum seekers like us who have been waiting for seven years and have known for seven years that the system is broken.”