The Trump administration’s decision to end temporary humanitarian protections for Venezuelans who came to the United States seeking refuge in recent years has plunged hundreds of thousands of people into uncertainty. Many worry they could be deported back to the autocratic regime they tried to flee.
“We lived in fear and we are still afraid,” said Jesús, who fled Venezuela with his wife and children, crossing through Colombia, the Darien jungle in Panama and then Mexico, before arriving in Texas in 2021. His wife had worked as a civil servant in Venezuela, and had grown increasingly alarmed by the government’s crackdown on free speech and resisted participating in pro-government demonstrations. That’s when the couple began receiving threats. “They even chased us into our home,” Jesús said.
In 2023, his family secured temporary protected status (TPS) – allowing them to legally live and work in the US – and assumed they would be safe for a while.
But earlier this month, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem abruptly decided to end TPS for approximately 350,000 Venezuelans in the US, including Jesús. Within 60 days, the administration plans to strip away the designation, saying that the situation in Venezuela had “notably improved”.
“You can imagine – this came as a shock,” Jesús said. “We suffered a political persecution in our country and now we are doing it here as well.”
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For the past 35 years, TPS has offered immigration status to people who have fled countries experiencing ongoing armed conflict, environmental disaster or extraordinary conditions that make it unsafe to return there. What is especially harrowing for many people with temporary protections, now that it’s being taken away, is how easy they will be to find, and deport. In order to secure TPS, they had to submit all their information, their home addresses and histories to the government.
Immigrant advocacy groups have been encouraging Venezuelans with temporary protections to find a legal service provider as soon as possible. They have also been providing “know your rights” training. “This is the same information that they’re giving to people who have been long residing undocumented immigrants – because the same rights will apply to people who have TPS, who may lose their status,” said Laura Vazquez, director of immigrant integration at UnidosUS.
A family from Venezuela stays on the floor of a makeshift shelter operated by the city at O’Hare international airport in Chicago, Illinois, on 24 October 2023. Photograph: Chicago Tribune/TNS
As the Trump administration tries to ramp up deportations, people with expired protections who have not managed to apply for asylum or other avenues to remain in the US permanently could be easy targets. Jésus and his family are keenly aware of this.
Though they have applied for asylum and are awaiting an appointment with the immigration courts in 2027, and would be protected from deportation while their case is pending, Jésus still worries about being caught up in raids. “I hear a lot about how some people don’t have their papers respected,” he said. “We no longer go out alone – only when it’s necessary for work.”
His four kids – ranging from preschool to high school aged – have been feeling the tension too. Amid news that Ice agents are conducting raids in major cities, and will be authorized to enter schools, they’ve asked him “Papá, they won’t look for us, will they?”
Jesús and his wife have started ordering all their food and supplies online, rather than trying to stop by the grocery store after their shifts. They also started looking into selling their home and their car, so that they’ll have enough funds to pay legal fees and cover expenses in case they are unable to legally work if their temporary status is taken away.
In recent days, they’ve also started thinking about where else they could go if they are not allowed to remain in the US. More than anything, they want to avoid getting deported to Venezuela. “It’s like they’re trying to throw us into the lions’ cage, as we say in my country,” Jesús said. “Because they would be sending us to persecution and certain death.”
Trump had previously tried to terminate protections for people from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan during his first term. Back then, however, officials proposed allowing those who were affected to keep their protected status for 12 to 18 months before it ended. But that was challenged in court, and people with temporary status were ultimately able to keep their status when Joe Biden took office and rescinded Trump’s TPS terminations.
This time around, the administration has moved to end protections earlier, revoking the outgoing Biden administration’s decision to extend the protections for Venezuelans until October 2026. About 300,000 Venezuelans who received TPS in 2023 will lose their temporary status 60 days from when the administration posted notice this month, and another 250,000 who received the status in 2021 will lose the protections in September. The move is likely to face legal challenges.
A family from Venezuela make the long walk to the bus station from the migrant camp at Floyd Bennett Field, on 19 December 2024 in the borough of Queens, New York City. Photograph: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis/Getty Images
“Once again you have the Trump administration actively trying to strip immigration status of several hundred thousands people who are lawfully present and employed,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, a UCLA law professor who led the lawsuit that blocked Trump from terminating TPS protections during his first term. Doing so will strip away work permits for people who work in industries across the US, and could have a “catastrophic economic impact” in communities across the US.
“There’s also the humanitarian impact of telling 300,000 people they should just go back to a country that is, in this case, extremely unsafe. Everybody knows it. I mean, everybody knows Venezuela is a very precarious and dangerous place to live, which is why millions of people have fled,” he added.
In Noem’s termination notice, she argued that Venezuelans no longer needed protection, because there had been “notable improvements in several areas such as the economy, public health, and crime”. She also added that it was “contrary to the national interest” to allow TPS holders to stay in the US, claiming that members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had come to the US, and that US cities could not bear the financial burden of helping new arrivals settle.
Advocates questioned the logic of rescinding immigrants’ ability to work and contribute to the communities. Experts have also questioned how the administration could cite improvements, given the state department’s warnings that Venezuela remains in crisis. In recent months, authoritarian president Nicolás Maduro’s government has been rounding up hundreds who protested fraudulent election results – as well as people who happened to be near protests but seemingly had no involvement in politics. The Biden administration had also issued a $25m bounty for Maduro’s arrest.
Immigration advocates are encouraging all Venezuelan TPS holders who might be eligible to apply for asylum in the US as soon as possible – as doing so would allow them their best chance of staying in country. But the process is complex and can be expensive. “It’s not a small thing, especially when the asylum law is so complicated and very difficult to do without an attorney,” said Arulanantham.
Mary, a mother of four in Georgia, said she has been having panic attacks and nosebleeds since learning that she and her family could lose their protected status. “I’ve spent six days crying in my bedroom,” she said. “My kids have been crying too. They run into the closet every time they hear a knock on the door.”
Her husband was nearly killed in Venezuela, escaping the country with a crack in his skull. Mary, too, was persecuted. As a young law student in Venezuela, she had studied with a prominent opposition leader. “It is impossible to return there,” she said. “If I set foot again in Venezuela I am sure that they will either put my husband in prison or kill him. And they’ll do the same to me.”
She had tried to apply for asylum once already, only to discover later that she had been swindled by her immigration lawyer – who had failed to properly file her paperwork, and that she had been issued a deportation order. Her temporary status has been the only thing protecting her. The family now has an appointment with another lawyer at the end of March, but she worries that there won’t be enough time to sort out their affairs before their protected status expires. She worries about where her family could even go, and how she will be able to provide for her youngest son, who is autistic. Even if they do survive returning to Venezuela, she said, how could she possibly find the special education programs her son needs there?
“When the secretary of security told us that all of us, all of us who crossed the border were criminals, we were from the Tren de Augua gang, that really affected me,” she said. “After nearly four years here, my husband and I don’t have a single ticket, we don’t have a single fine.”
Now, all she can do is wait and hope, she added. “I am clinging to God’s word,” she said. “He’s our only protection.”
The names of TPS holders in this piece have been changed to protect their safety and the safety of their families