Bills currently under consideration in Congress would allow temporary protected status holders like me to have a sense of certainty in our futures by providing a pathway to citizenship.
By The Philadelphia Inquirer – Víctor Guillen,
Jul 26, 2021
I grew up in Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela, where I not only experienced the best years of my life, but also the collective trauma of a nation. When I was 16, I decided to get politically involved in one of the most vocally anti-government parties in the country. My motivation was fundamentally driven by a desire for change. Today I am fortunate enough to live in a country where I don’t need to fear violence for using my voice to demand change, and so I am calling on Congress to finally step up and fix our broken immigration system.
My life as a teenager consisted of waiting in line for hours for food and medicine, which we were only allowed to buy during certain days of the week depending on the last digit of our ID. In fact, shortages became so chronic that we were asked to scan our fingerprints at supermarkets and pharmacies, which helped authorities keep control over the rationing system. Unfortunately, shortages were not exclusive to food and medicine. Water and electricity only came during certain times of the day, while organized crime was rampant in the powerless nights of Caracas.
It became clear to me that we did not live in a “dysfunctional democracy” like many people claimed, but rather a complete totalitarian state backed by military force. During the protests, dozens of students were killed by the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service. Hundreds were permanently injured, and thousands were jailed. The situation became critically unstable, and I decided to temporarily leave Venezuela to pursue my higher education in the U.S. with the hope of finding academic scholarships.
I had always planned on returning home after school, but circumstances in my country became even worse during my time in college. Although I was legally in the U.S. under a temporary student visa, returning to Venezuela had become extremely risky. Luckily, Homeland Security determined that Venezuelan citizens were eligible to apply for temporary protected status (TPS) in the U.S., and so I officially became a TPS-seeker.
TPS is an important program that gives legal status to live and work in the U.S. to people who are fleeing emergencies such as war or natural disasters in their home countries. More than 300,000 people are currently protected by the program, and many of them have been here for decades because the situations in their home countries never improved. They have built lives for themselves here, and started families and businesses.
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