Many of you have been following the story of Veronica, one of the Venezuelan asylum seekers staying in our apartments this past summer. She, along with four other single Venezuelan women, also guests in our apartments, ended up in Eloy (AZ) detention at the end of summer. The first two parts of Veronica's story are here and here. At the time of our October newsletter, Veronica and the other women were waiting for their very consequential Credible Fear Interviews. It is the CFI that determines a person's ability to stay in the US and proceed with their asylum case. Failure to pass the CFI results in deportation.
On Oct 11th, we learned the good news that Veronica and all four of "our" women in detention had passed their CFIs. Thanks to the Florence Project's Border Action Team for helping our Venezuelan friends prepare for and ultimately pass their interviews. The celebration was short-lived when we heard that Veronica and a couple of the women were not immediately released from detention. We were concerned that ICE might keep them detained for the duration of their asylum cases, rather than releasing them to their sponsors in the US. As we've learned time and again, immigration policies can be arbitrary and cruel. There is very little in the realm of immigration that is predictable. So, we waited…
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