The US administration grants protection to 300,000 Venezuelans

As many as 300,000 Venezuelan migrants will be eligible for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in the US. The administration of Joe Biden passed a decision on the matter, thus delivering on Biden’s electoral promises.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas explained the decision by the fact that “the living conditions in Venezuela reveal a country in turmoil, unable to protect its own citizens”.

According to the decision, TPS will allow Venezuelan refugees already residing illegally in the US as of 8 March 2021 to legally work and live there for 18 months, that is, until September 2022, with a possibility to extend their status, if the situation in Venezuela does not improve.

Applying for TPS implies providing a number of translated documents and paying a $540 fee.

The decision taken by Biden’s administration is a relief for many Venezuelans who have been living in the US without legal status and in fear of deportation. As of 2018, there were about 400,000 Venezuelan migrants residing in the US. For many of them, TPS is a guarantee that if they are not assigned asylum, they will not be deported, albeit temporarily.

Adrian Kostencki, President of the Venezuelans American National Bar Association, appreciated the approach of the new administration, telling CNN: “This is a big deal for the thousands of families that can’t go back to their own country and now can call this country their own country, at least for a while.”

The stance of Biden’s administration towards Venezuelans seeking shelter in the US differs from that of his predecessor, Donald Trump, who introduced a harsh policy against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s “tyrannical socialist government”, as he called it, and was reluctant in supporting Venezuelan migrants. It was only on the last day of his mandate that Trump granted them Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) instead of the expected TPS. Unlike TPS, DED can be revoked by the president at any time.

As a rule, TPS is assigned to migrants from countries affected by natural disasters, epidemic, armed conflict, or other extraordinary circumstances. The US has so far granted TPS to over 400,000 foreigners from 12 countries. The largest number receiving TPS are people from El Salvador (247,697) followed by Honduras (79,415), Haiti (55,338), Nepal (14,550), Syria (6,934), Nicaragua (4,421), Yemen (1,646), Sudan (774), Somalia (455) and South Sudan (96). Venezuelans will be the nationality with the highest number of TPS-granted migrants.

Venezuelans live in permanently hazardous conditions as their country is affected by extreme hunger and poverty triggered by the protracted economic crisis. The UN World Food Programme estimates that one in three Venezuelans suffers because of hunger, which means that 9.3 million people do not have sufficient food to meet minimum nutrition requirements. Venezuela has almost 29 million inhabitants, 5 million of whom live abroad, mostly in Latin American countries, which makes Venezuelans the second largest group of refugees after Syrians globally.