The Trump administration’s latest immigration shakeup has sent tremors through the Venezuelan community, as some face a possible return to a country whose regime has been dubbed illegal by the U.S.
The Trump administration revoked Temporary Protected Status for almost 350,000 Venezuelans who are in the U.S. Also, the protection will end in 60 days instead of October. Those affected will no longer have temporary protection from deportation or work permits that TPS allows.
Venezuelan activist Beatriz Olavarria said that, for some, “returning would be almost suicidal.” Many Venezuelans have fled amid brutal crackdowns on protests against the government and struggles for basic goods such as food and medicine.
“Some of those people that are here, that have spoken about the situation in Venezuela on cameras and everywhere, they set foot in Venezuela and they will be jailed,” Olavarria told NBC6 South Florida.
The latest TPS revocation is part of President Donald Trump’s ongoing effort to conduct mass deportations in the country, purging it of immigrants without permanent legal status. Trump pledged to target violent criminals in his campaign, but people with TPS have permission to be here and must pass criminal background checks to be eligible.
TPS is granted to immigrants in the U.S. who can’t return to their countries because of natural disasters or political upheaval. TPS does not provide a path to citizenship and administrations can issue or end a country’s TPS designation.
‘Betrayed’
“Betrayed. We feel betrayed. More than betrayed. Beyond betrayed,” said Adeyls Ferro, executive director of the Venezuelan American Caucus in Doral, Florida, a south Florida suburb dubbed “Doralzuela” for its large Venezuelan population.
TPS holders are “living a legal life in the United States,” she said in a news conference on Monday. “We are not here because we came as tourists. We are here because we got kicked out from our country because … there is a cruel dictatorship in Venezuela.”
In November, the U.S. joined other countries in recognizing Edmundo Gonzalez as president-elect of Venezuela, based on election results showing he won a majority of votes. Incumbent President Nicolás Maduro, however, claimed victory.
The U.S. State Department reissued a “do not travel” advisory last September warning U.S. citizens not to travel to Venezuela “due to the high risk of wrongful detentions, terrorism, kidnapping, the arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest, poor health infrastructure.” Among other things, the warning said shortages of gasoline, electricity, water, medicine and medical supplies continue.
The TPS termination follows a meeting between Trump’s envoy to Venezuela, Richard Grenell, and Maduro last week. Grenell returned with six Americans detained in Venezuela. The two also discussed migration and sanctions. A Venezuelan official said it was willing to restart legal cooperation to extradite Tren de Aragua gang members back to Venezuela.
While President Trump said on TruthSocial on Friday that Venezuela had agreed to take back people who are deported, the Venezuelan government has not confirmed this.
Legally ending, but facing challenges
The Homeland Security secretary has the authority to end TPS, said Elizabeth Taufa, senior policy attorney and strategist for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. But she said there is need for continuity between administrations because people rely on the decisions to plan their lives. Many of these Venezuelans were told in January they had 18 more months and now find they only have about two months before they lose TPS status, she said.
“It’s kind of whiplash for the same government to say in January things haven’t improved in Venezuela, we have to extend TPS and then two weeks later, to say, actually things are absolutely fine in Venezuela,” Taufa said.
Ferro, from South Florida, said her group is planning litigation. Trump targeted TPS in his first term and court battles ensued, with an appeals court ruling in 2020 that he could end TPS. Many TPS holders have been living in fear since Trump’s re-election.
Rafael Struve, communications director for Bienvenido, a conservative Latino group that helped elect Republicans, said the TPS curtailment “has me at a crossroads, trying to understand the concerns of both sides.”
Struve, who was born in the U.S. to Venezuelan parents, said he still has family in the country and his family has been affected by the country’s political and economic crises.
“I, like many Venezuelans, was very supportive of President Trump. I very much believed he would take a firmer stance on the Maduro regime,” he said.
But he said he was confused by a DHS statement in a memo that the agency, along with the State Department, had concluded that “there are notable improvements in several areas such as the economy, public health, and crime.”
“I think that’s very, very debatable. Based on what I am hearing from folks who live there right now, the situation has not improved economically. If that were true, many people would go back and would not be leaving. Venezuela continues to have the largest exodus of any other country on planet Earth.”
Trump has had heavy support in the Venezuelan community, in part because of his tough stand against Maduro in his previous term. But the increased post-pandemic arrivals of Venezuelans seeking asylum have caused a split in the community, with some moving, along with other Americans, to a more hawkish view on immigration.
Hours before leaving office at the end of his first term, Trump granted a different form of protection to Venezuelans, Deferred Enforced Departure, for 18 months. That expired in July 2022, and those eligible were able to apply for TPS.
The presence of members of Tren de Aragua in the U.S. has also helped instill some wariness toward newer arrivals.
In 2023, as shelters in major cities overfilled and strained resources in places like New York City, President Biden responded by granting Temporary Protected Status to all Venezuelans who had lived in the U.S. since July 2023. That allowed them to be able to work sooner than they would if they followed the asylum process.
The Venezuelans affected by the latest curtailment of TPS by the Department of Homeland Security affects those who became eligible for it in 2023. Their protection was due to end this April, but Biden extended it through fall 2026. Trump’s DHS published a notice in the Federal Register on Monday that said the TPS would end in April, as originally scheduled.
Last week, the administration also cut short the TPS of Venezuelans who had been granted TPS in 2021, and then got an extension until fall 2026. Trump is ending their TPS in September.
A limited number of people with TPS can pursue separate immigration paths to obtaining a green card, such as by applying for asylum, marriage to a citizen or if sponsored by an employer or family member.
Struve said that while he understands that Trump has a mandate on immigration, he’s hoping that more consideration is given to perspectives from Latin America policy experts.
“We are seeing this bifurcation of perspective on what to do with the Venezuela situation, with folks in the wing of Kristi Noem and Homeland Security wanting to attack it from immigration standpoint, but the fact of the matter is the best policy to turn off the spigot is making sure that Maduro is gone.”