When the first buses carrying asylum seekers began arriving at the downtown Holiday Inn in August 2023, many of the families onboard were from Venezuela.
They were fleeing violence.
But often their case for asylum is weak, because they have to show the violence equates to persecution based on their particular social group. So in the lead up to the November presidential election — and the three months since — lawyers with the Rochester Legal Aid Society tried another route as their clients sought to avoid being sent back to live under a brutal regime: filing for Temporary Protected Status.
The agency helped file more than 100 such applications, said Shakira Hutchinson, director of the agency’s Immigration Law Unit. Most were for those Venezuelan men, women and children bused here from New York City.
The special U.S. designation has been extended to recent arrivals from more than a dozen countries where conditions are seen as too dangerous for migrants to return. It provides a short-term stay, lifting them out of removal proceedings.
Or it would have, until President Donald Trump cancelled those protections last week.
The decision affects hundreds of thousands of newly arrived Venezuelans nationwide, revoking work permits and deportation safeguards in as little as 60 days. It was one of several immigration edicts delivered in a dizzying start to a second Trump administration.
“There is a real fear in the community,” Hutchinson said — and confusion, extending beyond just Venezuelans and upending any sense of stability for those with legal but temporary status. Another lawyer in her unit described the unease as "pervasive and inescapable.”
Instead of a typical list of 30 to 40 people awaiting callbacks, she said, today they have 150. And they have done as many “Know Your Rights” presentations to immigrant groups in the past two weeks — 20 and counting — as they typically do in year. Only now, the audience includes children so young they can barely read.
The United States has seen record migration from Venezuela in recent years as people fled political and economic tumult. The U.S. Department of State continues to recommend that people not travel to Venezuela, assigning its highest risk level due to "wrongful detentions, terrorism, kidnapping, the arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest, poor health infrastructure.” Last summer saw a deadly crackdown on protests as Venezuela’s autocratic president, Nicolás Maduro, sought to quell dissent after claiming to have won election to a third term. The violence drew international condemnation, and U.S. sanctions — including an increased reward for information leading to Maduro's arrest.
In its first three weeks, the Trump administration delivered what Hutchinson described as a constantly shifting playing field on immigration, with new policies and directives across multiple agencies, including immigration courts, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Customs and Border Protection, and changes to U.S. immigration law.
“Immigration is just a mess,” she said.
An increase in immigration enforcement locally appears thus far to be targeted toward specific individuals with criminal histories, Hutchinson and others monitoring the situation confirm.
But there is a dearth of immigration lawyers in the Rochester area to help new arrivals navigate all the changes. Hutchinson’s unit has seven lawyers. Journey’s End, which also works in this arena, has two lawyers dedicated to immigration legal services. Outside of that, the work falls to lawyers with other specialties volunteering to assist with filings.
As a result, most people with cases before the Batavia Immigration Court — upwards of 60%, officials said — don't have an attorney. But getting a continuance with the hope of getting a lawyer pauses their case. And for asylum seekers, that’s important, officials said. Because it delays their ability to get a work permit, which is only granted to those whose cases have been pending and active for 150 days.
