Nearly 100 Venezuelans at a roundtable this week showed support for passing the Venezuelan Adjustment Act, legislation that would grant Venezuelans a pathway to permanent residency, but the bill needs work, according to experts.

“I have been in the asylum process for the past 10 years without any response” from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, July Artuza said. “My first job in this country was as a dishwasher and, like many, we slowly started making it with my husband and three kids.”

Artuza applied for asylum a decade ago when Nicolas Maduro became president of Venezuela. Asylum is granted to immigrants who are fleeing their country from harm or persecution and allows them to stay in the U.S. without fear of deportation.

Artuza and her husband own Pa’ Paraguaná Venezuelan Latin Restaurant in Kissimmee. They employ 23 people, all of whom are stuck in the asylum process or under Temporary Protected Status, Artuza said.

The asylum process can take years and, currently, there is a backlog of 889,549 cases in the U.S., according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) that gathers data on immigration at Syracuse University. In Florida, there are 146,084 asylum cases pending with over 32,000 of those cases from Venezuelans, according to the data.

The bill provides a path for Venezuelans seeking asylum, Temporary Protected Status, parole or through other avenues to get permanent residency.

Temporary Protected Status, known as TPS, allows individuals to legally stay in the U.S. for a designated period with the right to work and protection against deportation during that time. In 2021, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas designated Venezuela as a country whose citizens can enter and stay in the U.S. through TPS and recently extended it until March 2024.

The designation of TPS for Venezuelans came after a United States Department of State report “concluded there were reasonable grounds to believe that the Maduro regime committed crimes against humanity” on top of decades of high inflation, poverty and instability.

Venezuelans can also enter the U.S. through the parole program that began in October by the Department of Homeland Security. It allows Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans and Haitians entry into the U.S. without entry documents on a case-by-case basis for two years.

Artuza and others at the roundtable said not being a permanent resident makes their lives harder. Many Venezuelans at the roundtable said they were working and degree-holding professionals who, after moving to the U.S., cannot apply for recertification due to their immigration status. Artuza said she and other Venezuelan businesses are suffering without a path to permanent residency because businesses can’t take out a line of credit, among other difficulties.

“We give many thanks to the U.S. for allowing us to get out of the horrible dictatorship in Venezuela,” Artuza said. “We still have difficulties when the work permit is slow to get to us or when our driver’s license expires and when trying to cash a check, but we pay taxes every year.” The roundtable was organized by Central Floridabased My Voice Counts, which is leading the charge to get Venezuelans a path to expedited permanent residency.

My Voice Counts Director Francisco Rodriguez said he and his wife, CEO Mildred Rodriguez, are speaking with every congressperson to explain the bill and plan to hold roundtables in every state.

“I have been asked in Congress by officials, ‘Why only Venezuela?’” Francisco Rodriguez said. “Venezuela is the same as Cuba; Venezuela has no diplomatic relationship with the United States whatsoever. … Venezuela doesn’t have any embassy or any consulate and so does Cuba. … So, it’s not only something that’s wanted; it’s needed.”

Francisco Rodriguez knows there is precedent for expedited permanent residency: the Cuban Adjustment Act, which went into effect in 1966 and allowed Cubans to become permanent residents. The Venezuelan Adjustment Act is modeled after the Cuban Adjustment Act.

In June, U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, D-Fla., introduced H.R. 4048 or the Venezuelan Adjustment Act, which adjusts the status of certain Venezuelan immigrants to permanent residents. Eligible Venezuelans must have entered the U.S. on or before Dec. 31, 2021, and must have been continually in the U.S. for a minimum of one year.

The bill has bipartisan support which Soto said is important for successfully passing. The bill’s cosponsors are South Florida Republican Maria Elvira Salazar and Democrats Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Frederica Wilson.

“These two programs, TPS and parole, are very important they’re helping people get their legal status here but it can come and go with whoever is president of the United States so this is to make sure we can have a more permanent solution and people can move on with their lives,” Soto said. “You heard testimony here today about doctors and lawyers, small business owners, dentists, teachers and students and all of them are living in intervals of a year to a yearand- a-half because TPS only lasts for a certain amount of time and the parole program again is discretionary by the president.”

Pablo Rueda Saiz, associate professor of law at the University of Miami with a focus on international policy and an immigrant from Colombia, said this bill can be problematic from a public policy perspective.

“If you look at the way in which immigration policies have been changing in the last few years, what has happened is that the programs for adjustment of immigrants have been defunded significantly,” Rueda Saiz said. “For example, language programs … other kinds of labor adjustment for immigrant labor programs, have been stopped.”

Rueda Saiz said the bill doesn’t target a specific demographic with respect to Venezuela.

“It’s across the board and it treats them as if they were asylum seekers regardless of the reasons that they have or the status that they have here in the U.S.,” Rueda Saiz said. “So, what you’re going to get is, you’re going to get a lot of asylum seekers and those people don’t generally have the means and don’t necessarily have the background that allows them to flourish here in the U.S.”

Another problem with the bill is that it’s unclear what documentation is needed to prove someone has been in the U.S. legally, Rueda Saiz said. He said this could pose an especially big problem in Florida after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1718 into law, which immigration lawyers recently said could pose a threat to immigrants.

The Venezuelan Adjustment Act’s requirements for becoming a permanent resident include being in the U.S. for at least one year and entering before Dec. 31, 2021, but doesn’t include what documents Venezuelans must provide.

“Now in terms of providing evidence, that’s going to be hard because the bill doesn’t distinguish between people who came here illegally or with a tourist visa. Because of that, people who came here illegally may not have proof of their stay,” Rueda Saiz said. “Bureaucratically, I think it might become a mess.”

Francisco Rodriguez said Venezuelans are better off with getting permanent residency status because they cannot go home due to the crisis in the country.

He and his organization will continue fighting for the bill to pass.

“We are working for this to pass as soon as possible. … Our hopes are high because there’s no other bipartisan effort on immigration,” Francisco Rodriguez said.

The next step for the bill is getting a hearing, Soto said.

“Things in Congress take a while so I’m hopeful we’ll get at least a hearing this year or this term, and potentially move it out of the House,” Soto said. “It’s going to be a multiyear effort.”