These immigrants fled violence, now harsh reality calls

Carolyn Komatsoulis, Kevin Fixler, Tribune News Service

Gregory Bastos remembers being kidnapped along with a friend and beaten by Venezuelan forces for his political activism, not knowing whether he would die. The experience was traumatising, he said, sitting at a cafe in downtown Boise with his wife, Oriana Bastos. The Venezuelan-born couple, both 27, didn’t wait long before they crossed the border to Colombia, took a bus to the capital, Bogotá, and flew to Mexico. The two turned themselves in at the US border to request asylum and were detained briefly. Since then, they’ve been waiting four years for an asylum court date. When a hearing was set for April 10, the two Idaho residents felt like there was an end in sight, finally. But their slot was cancelled a week beforehand because of a judge reassignment, they said, plunging them back into uncertainty.

It’s been a long road, starting from nothing. Away in the US, Oriana missed the death of her grandmother back home, she said, choking up. Oriana and her husband were both attorneys in South America, but have worked in restaurants and at a hospital locally. She said they’ve struggled in a different culture, with a different language and with people who aren’t always welcoming.

And since President Donald Trump retook office, the couple has been dealing with his rhetoric and the ever-changing news cycle. “He doesn’t have any idea what it means to be an immigrant,” Oriana said, in Spanish. “It’s life or death.” Asylum is an internationally recognised protection for people who face persecution in their home countries. The process has long been time consuming. But with the Trump administration’s hardening attitude toward immigrants, local lawyers said asylum-seekers are struggling with a more hostile bureaucracy and a chaotic environment.

Trump and other members of his administration have said they are trying to make America safer by deporting people and improving security at the US-Mexico border. Gregory and Oriana aren’t alone in dealing with the judge’s reassignment. Idaho cases are heard in Portland, according to local immigration lawyers, but a Washington state immigration judge used to hear Idaho cases remotely.

Then scheduled hearings for Idaho cases started getting cancelled this spring, said Neal Dougherty, a Nampa-based immigration attorney with Ramirez-Smith Law. No official explanation was given. Department of Justice spokesperson Kathryn Mattingly did not answer questions about why those cases were cancelled. Dougherty said, after the reassignment, court dates are now scheduled as far out as 2030. In the past, his clients would wait just two or three years, he said. Some people, like Gregory and Oriana, are still waiting to be rescheduled, he said.

Such legal challenges to local asylum-seekers affect more than just Latino communities. People from many other nationalities who are trying to establish legal residency or US citizenship are in the same dilemma. Eddie Hamdard, 30, a native of Afghanistan, received a path to US citizenship through a special immigration visa programme after he assisted the American military during its 20-year war in his home country. He arrived to the US in 2015 and became naturalised in 2020. But he has witnessed past US pledges to grant legal status to his immediate family members stall, and grown more and more frustrated by evolving policies, including sudden changes once Trump re-entered the White House in January.

Hamdard, who lives in Boise, has been able to navigate a patchwork of US immigration systems to find routes for his mother, sister and older brother to join him in Idaho. But the status of those applications long remained in flux. And Hamdard has remained unable to find a successful path for his sister’s husband.

The lack of stability and reliable help and information over the years has severely impacted his and his family’s mental health, he told the Statesman. “My brother feels abandoned by the system he once trusted, while my brother-in-law faces life-threatening risks daily in Afghanistan,” Hamdard said last month. “Many Afghans perceive US immigration policies as humiliating and dismissive of their sacrifices during US military operations, amplifying feelings of betrayal within our community.”

Gregory and Oriana’s home state of Táchira, in western Venezuela on the Colombian border, is well-known for its longtime opposition to the country’s regime. Both of them protested against the government as part of the political party Acción Democrática. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro took office in 2013 and has presided over the largest economic decline outside of wartime in decades. His critics say he stole an election last year and has imprisoned, tortured and kidnapped people. Millions of Venezuelans have already left in the years since his ascension. Recently, several members of his opposition fled to the US, and the top opposition leader remains in hiding. Inside Venezuela, Gregory and Oriana said they met as law students at a local university. They got married in the US in 2022.

“I believe that us Venezuelans, we don’t lose faith,” Oriana said, tearing up. “That one day it will change and we can go back once again.” Now to be lawyers again, they’d have to save up to attend law school in the US. It’s very expensive, they said, especially amid all of their other expenses, including taxes, vehicle costs and sending money home. A dangerous country alone isn’t enough for people to qualify for asylum, said J.J. Despain, managing attorney for the Wilner & O’Reilly Boise office. People have to show specific and credible fears to receive protection in the US. Immigrants can either apply on their own or raise asylum as a defense to deportation. For many hoping to stay in the country, asylum is their only legal option, driving up the number of applications, Despain said. The US has just under 2 million open asylum cases, according to the Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Asylum is under the purview of Congress, not the executive branch. But that didn’t stop Trump from issuing orders with immediate impacts on asylum-seekers. In his first days, Trump signed an executive order prohibiting people from seeking asylum through the border with Mexico. His administration also shut down a mobile app called CBP One, which had allowed asylum-seekers to schedule appointments. The administration then cancelled the legal status of around 1 million people who had previously entered the country using the app, including some who had pending asylum applications. A recent memo laid out a plan for judges to dismiss asylum cases without a hearing. “All that matters is if you’re an immigrant, you’re an enemy,” Oriana said.

Trump campaigned on mass deportations and stopping the flow of immigrants into the country. In recent years, public opinion in the US has shifted to a more anti-immigration stance, according to recent Gallup national polling. That changing public opinion is part of what Gregory, Oriana and Hamdard said they find so discouraging about the current political climate. “The systemic delays and anti-immigration policies have left my family in chaos — struggling to navigate complex legal processes while facing employment barriers and emotional distress,” Hamdard said.