JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Trump administration revokes deportation protections for 600,000 Venezuelans

by

GUARDIAN MEDIA NEWSROOM
20 days ago
20250129
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks to employees at the Department of Homeland Security, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks to employees at the Department of Homeland Security, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Manuel Balce Ceneta

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Sec­re­tary Kristi Noem said Wednes­day that the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has re­voked a de­ci­sion that would have pro­tect­ed rough­ly 600,000 peo­ple from Venezuela from de­por­ta­tion.

On “Fox and Friends,” Noem said that she re­versed the de­ci­sion made by her suc­ces­sor, Ale­jan­dro May­orkas, in the wan­ing days of the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion that ex­tend­ed Tem­po­rary Pro­tect­ed Sta­tus.

“Be­fore he left town, May­orkas signed an or­der that said for 18 months they were go­ing to ex­tend this pro­tec­tion to peo­ple that are on tem­po­rary pro­tect­ed sta­tus, which meant that they were go­ing to be able to stay here and vi­o­late our laws for an­oth­er 18 months,” Noem said. “We stopped that.”

The move goes in­to ef­fect im­me­di­ate­ly. The six page no­tice from the DHS says that the de­ci­sion from the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion re­stores the sta­tus quo pre­ced­ing the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion de­ci­sion to ex­tend pro­tec­tions for Venezue­lans un­til Oct. 2026. Now the TPS ex­pi­ra­tion goes back to the orig­i­nal date of April 2025.

The Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion pre­vi­ous­ly ex­tend­ed the pro­tec­tions to more than 230,000 Sal­vadore­ans, 103,000 Ukraini­ans and 1,900 Su­danese that are al­ready liv­ing in the U.S. Noem did not say what would hap­pen to them and the DHS no­tice on­ly refers to Venezue­lans.

The TPS des­ig­na­tion gives peo­ple le­gal au­thor­i­ty to be in the coun­try but doesn’t pro­vide a long-term path to cit­i­zen­ship. They are re­liant on the gov­ern­ment re­new­ing their sta­tus when it ex­pires. Crit­ics have said that over time, the re­new­al of the pro­tec­tion sta­tus be­comes au­to­mat­ic, re­gard­less of what is hap­pen­ing in the per­son’s home coun­try.

The pol­i­cy change was first re­port­ed Tues­day by The New York Times.

Venezue­lans who had the pro­tec­tion could now be sub­ject to re­moval from the coun­try, though the U.S. doesn’t have diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Venezuela, lim­it­ing de­por­ta­tion op­tions. Oth­er coun­tries that do not re­ceive de­por­tees in­clude Cu­ba and Nicaragua, but Noem said that Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump “clear­ly will ex­er­cise all the au­thor­i­ty and pow­er that he has to make these coun­tries take them back.”

Con­gress cre­at­ed TPS in 1990 to pre­vent de­por­ta­tions to coun­tries suf­fer­ing from nat­ur­al dis­as­ters or civ­il strife, giv­ing peo­ple au­tho­riza­tion to work in in­cre­ments of up to 18 months at a time.

About 1 mil­lion im­mi­grants from 17 coun­tries are pro­tect­ed by TPS, in­clud­ing peo­ple from Venezuela, Haiti, Hon­duras, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Su­dan, Ukraine and Lebanon. Venezue­lans are one of the largest ben­e­fi­cia­ries, and the ex­ten­sion au­tho­rized by the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion would have al­lowed them to stay from April 2025 to Oct. 2, 2026.

TPS faces an un­cer­tain fu­ture un­der Trump, who tried to sharply cur­tail its use dur­ing his first term. Fed­er­al reg­u­la­tions would al­low the ex­ten­sions to be ter­mi­nat­ed ear­ly, though that’s rarely been done. —WASH­ING­TON (AP)

_______

Sto­ry by RE­BEC­CA SAN­TANA and GISELA SA­LOMON | As­so­ci­at­ed Press


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored