\n\n“Berioskha Guevara has no words to describe her happiness living in the United States. After decades of fear as a political opponent in Venezuela and struggles to buy staples like milk and bread, the 53-year-old chemist feels she is dreaming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guevara and her 86-year-old father came to the U.S. under the sponsorship of her brother, a pharmacist who left after Hugo Chavez took power in 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNow we are like in paradise,\u201d said Guevara, who arrived in July 2023. \u201cI can\u2019t stop smiling, making plans, thanking God because without parole I would never have been able to live my dreams as I am living them now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled the country<\/a> as it went into an economic tailspin over the last decade. They are increasingly headed to the United States, which prompted the Biden administration to offer parole to 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Texas and 20 other states sued, saying the administration \u201ceffectively created a new visa program \u2014without the formalities of legislation from Congress” but does not challenge large-scale parole for Afghans and Ukrainians. A judge has yet to rule<\/a> after an August trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Venezuela, Guevara graduated in 2003 with a bachelor\u2019s degree in chemistry and for the last decade worked at a foreign private oil company earning $200 a month. It was a relatively good salary for Venezuelans, but inflation was very high, and food scarce. She worried about being arrested for being an opponent of the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the U.S., four months after filing for work authorization, she got a job at a supermarket. She is looking for work that would use her chemistry background while living with her father in her brother’s one-bedroom apartment in Orlando, Florida.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n