The buses may be slowing down with migrants from Texas, but there are already 21,000 migrants here in New York City.

Whether they can legally stay will be determined by the U.S. Department of Justice’s immigration judges.

The steps off the bus at the Port Authority Bus Terminal are the first for the migrants who have made it to New York City. Many hope it will be the last stop on a long journey from Central or South America.

They all have individual stories about why they came. The common theme: a better life for their families.

But achieving that is not guaranteed and getting that answer will take a long time.

“They still need to start a process and it is a hard process,” said Victoria Gamez, an immigration lawyer with Cabanillas and Associates.

On a Friday night this fall, Gamez sat in her living room in Huntington, Long Island.

For a few hours this night, she advised recent migrants on their legal cases — for free.

“They think when they are admitted in this country, they can work, they can can receive benefits only because they are here,” she said, discussing a lot of the misinformation she hears about regularly from the recent arrivals.

First, they need to apply for asylum. The application allows them to stay temporarily.

Asylum is defined as someone already in the U.S., or at a port of entry, who is unable to go back to their country because of persecution for one of five specific reasons: race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.

“They need information,” said Gamez, before her Zoom call with dozens of migrants began.

She answered questions, sometimes with brutal honesty.

“You go forward with asylum and you know that the chance that you will be approved is minimal, and it’s complicated,” she said on the call, in Spanish.

Government data shows from 2019 through 2021 that there have been more than 80,000 asylum seekers from Venezuela. Gamez said most of the people are coming now because of extreme poverty.

“This is not enough for an asylum case,” she said.

She said she believes many of these cases, as a result, will be rejected.

Another immigration lawyer, Ed Cuccia, is a little more optimistic about the chances for asylum seekers overall, as long as they can prove persecution along with economic crisis.

“For most applicants here in New York, you got a good shot,” he said. “50-50, maybe better here in New York.”

A federal report shows from 2019 through 2021, more than 12,000 Venezuelans obtained asylum nationwide. It is the country with the highest number of approved applicants.

And Cuccia said immigration judges in New York tend to grant more asylum cases than other states.

Regardless of what happens, Cuccia said it can take years for cases to be heard. Even if an asylum seeker’s case is denied, that person can apply for several different kinds of appeals.

The process can take at least a decade.

“All of that time, you are here,” Cuccia explained, saying asylum seekers can stay legally while they appeal.

That path requires a lawyer and can cost more than $10,000, which many of the migrants cannot afford.

“They would just live in the shadows for years and years and years and years and years,” he said, talking about the fact that even if they are denied asylum, many are not immediately deported.

Examples, he said, of a system that is broken.

Back on Long Island, Gamez said she’ll continue doing what she can in her spare time, advising as many people as she can for free.

She knows about their struggles firsthand, because Gamez is also from Venezuela.

Her path here was different because she married an American. She is now a U.S. citizen.

She said she does this pro bono work to help people similar to her, as they try to make new lives in the United States.