Migrants from Venezuela work on a draft of their asylum application at a legal clinic in Hyde Park, Oct. 22.
Manuel Martinez/WBEZ
Clock ticking for many recently arrived asylum seekers, but legal help is hard to find
Most have one year from the date of their arrival to apply, creating an invisible yet urgent need for services.
Despite a sharp decline in the flow of migrants arriving in Chicago, mutual aid volunteer Maureen Graves has not slowed down. These days, instead of trying to find basic necessities for the new arrivals, she is helping them apply for asylum in the U.S. — with many facing a fall deadline.
“Basically, I went from food, clothes and shoes to legal work,” said Graves, who has been a lawyer specializing in special education for 30 years.
More than 50,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, have arrived in Chicago since August 2022, fleeing violence, threats and persecution. Many are seeking asylum. With few exceptions, they have one year from the date of their arrival to submit their application for asylum with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS. That means those who arrived in Chicago last fall and wish to apply now have a limited amount of time to do so.
“It’s the same kind of chaotic calls for assistance that we were getting from people at police stations saying, ‘I need three more platters of food, I need blankets, I need diapers,’” said Brenda Delgado, a volunteer on the South Side who helps migrants and refers them to immigration services. “It’s that same urgency, but it’s not as visible.”
According to USCIS data, more than 30,000 asylum applications were filed in Chicago in the first half of 2024. That’s three times more than the number filed in 2022 during the same period.
Getting asylum in the U.S. is difficult. Applicants must provide concrete proof of persecution because of their gender, race, religion, political opinion or for belonging to a particular social group. From October 2023 to August 2024, fewer than one-quarter of the asylum cases processed in Chicago were granted, according to USCIS data.
If successful, it’s worth the effort. The benefits of getting asylum include legal employment and a path to permanent residency and citizenship.
However, the stakes are high. Experts like Lisa Koop, National Director of Legal Services with the National Immigration Justice Center, say it’s important to make sure people actually qualify for asylum. Otherwise, filing an application can do more harm than good.
“If you don’t win asylum, you can get a deportation order,” Koop said. “It may be better for that person to not begin this process and explore other legal options, or wait for changes in the law, rather than use the asylum system as sort of a catchall for people.”
Koop says that’s why the NIJC and other organizations have been holding clinics for people who don’t have lawyers. Yet the need for legal consultation and representation far exceeds what they can provide.
Delgado, who is constantly trying to connect migrants with free legal help, says many community groups offering immigration support are overwhelmed. Private immigration attorneys can be expensive, with fees ranging from $2,000 to $8,000 or more, depending on the case.
“People get lists of lawyers that [they are told] will help them for free.” But many times, they call and don’t hear back, Graves said. “When I’ve tried to send people to specific places for legal help, it’s usually been pretty unsuccessful.”
Graves said the local legal community needs to step up a lot more, especially large, resourced firms.
Even though she isn’t an immigration lawyer by training, with the guidance of local immigration attorneys, Graves started her own legal clinic. She helps the new arrivals with the most basic part of the process: filling out applications and paperwork.
“I have just been telling people I’m not an immigration lawyer,” Graves said. “I’m not going to do your hearing. I’m trying to get people to realize that I am not perfect and that they have to be on top of this stuff.”
Migrants face a lot of challenges. Some aren’t keeping track of their filing deadline. Others might have trouble finding documentation, including ID cards and birth certificates they might have lost crossing the jungle and several countries. People sometimes don’t have clear information about their hearings or understand how to find out.
A lengthy and complicated process
Arianny, who asked that we not use her last name for fear of it negatively impacting her application, traveled to Chicago from Venezuela with her husband and three children.
She and her family lived in a small town near the ocean, where her husband worked as a fisherman. But criminal groups began demanding protection money from her husband. They tried to stay in Venezuela, but after many extortions and threats, they left.
Arianny said the asylum application was long and hard to understand without the guidance of someone who was familiar with the process. She and her husband were required to gather evidence, including pictures of the life they left behind. They also had to ask people in Venezuela who witnessed the threats to write letters.
Experts say when people are represented by lawyers with well-prepared cases, the odds of getting asylum or being allowed to legally stay in the country are much higher. With help from Graves, Arianny recently filed her family’s application for asylum. Now the wait begins. It can take years, Koop says.
“In Chicago, the vast, vast, vast majority of those Venezuelan asylum cases or the cases of anybody who arrived on the buses, those aren’t even close to being adjudicated yet,” she said.
For now, Graves is trying to help migrants with the basics, but she says she wishes the nonprofit legal community would sound the alarm and help meet the urgent need.
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