Dyluis Rojas, a Venezuelan man who travels from Venezuela with his wife and children and later flees Colombia and Chile, has crossed deserts, jungles and rivers with one goal: to reach the United States and stay there.
The family arrived in June 2022. Less than a year and a half, the family was ecstatic when they received news that their asylum application had been approved by USCIS.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is one of the federal agencies that deal with immigration. Rojas and his wife may soon be able to start working, and they will eventually be able to apply for a green card.
A few days later, another letter came, the same date, signed by the same official. The letter said Rojas' asylum application was deemed "not credible," that he had not been granted asylum, and that the family faced the possibility of deportation.
"We're back to zero," Rojas said.
It is not clear why the two notices of opposition were issued, and which one will take effect.
Immigration attorneys say Rojas's situation is very unusual, but miscommunication within and within government agencies is not uncommon. Now, the family is waiting again, unsure of their fate.
The two contradictory letters draw attention to the fact that the immigration system has become overwhelmed as the influx of immigrants continues to flood the United States.
Thousands of people come here every day, and their hopes are pinned on the crumbling immigration agencies. Over the past two years, immigration agencies have received a record number of asylum applications.
According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and Syracuse University's Transaction Records Access Information Center (TRAC), there is currently a backlog of 2 million asylum cases.
Asylum applicants must submit an application within one year of arriving in the United States, but most immigrants lack the knowledge and resources to do so.
Asylum seekers may have to wait years to receive a decision, and the wait time and approval rate vary depending on factors such as the U.S. region and the applicant's nationality.
According to TRAC, the average waiting time for an asylum hearing in courts across the country is currently 1,429 days. At the USCIS, the processing time is close to ten years.
It's only going to get worse. Under President Biden's leadership, the number of people crossing the southern border has reached an all-time high. In recent weeks, Border Patrol has arrested as many as 10,000 people in a single day.
Since the spring of 2022, more than 160,000 immigrants have come to New York City, many of them Venezuelans, and about 70,000 are still in New York City's care.
The crisis has been a tough test for New York Mayor Eric Adams, who has been pleading with federal officials to ease the burden on large cities by providing more money on the one hand and speeding up the issuance of work permits and helping more people apply for asylum, one of the few ways to work legally.
According to the report, Rojas will appear in immigration court this week.
The best outcome is that the court dismisses the case for Rojas's family, and the USCIS confirms the validity of the first letter and issues another notice of asylum approval.