WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration is ending protections that shielded roughly 350,000 Venezuelans from deportation, leaving them with two months before they lose their right to work in the U.S.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s order affects 348,202 Venezuelans living in the U.S. with Temporary Protected Status slated to expire in April. That’s about half of the approximately 600,000 who have the protection. The remaining protections are set to expire at the end of September.
The termination notice will be published Wednesday and go into effect 60 days later.
It’s among the latest Trump administration actions targeting the immigration system, as officials work to make good on promises of cracking down on people illegally living in the country and to carry out the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history.
News of the decision threw Venezuelans living and working in the U.S. into turmoil.
“I feel like I’m in limbo — I will be undocumented beginning in April,” said Henry Carmona, a 48-year-old Venezuelan who described leaving his country after receiving threats on his life. “I cannot go back to Venezuela. I can go to jail. I fear for my life.”
In Venezuela, Carmona said, he worked as a painter for a government company but didn’t support the administration of President Nicolás Maduro. He was beaten by paramilitary forces close to Maduro, he said, and decided to leave.
Carmona arrived in the U.S. in 2022 and reunited in Miami with his wife and 17-year old daughter. The three requested TPS. He works in construction and said he’ll explore other ways to stay in the U.S. legally.
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. About 1 million immigrants from 17 countries are protected by TPS. Venezuelans comprise one of the largest beneficiaries.
In the decision, the Department of Homeland Security said conditions had improved enough in Venezuela to warrant ending protective status. Noem also said the TPS designation had been used to allow people who otherwise didn’t have an immigration pathway to settle in America.
“The sheer numbers have resulted in associated difficulties in local communities,” the secretary’s decision says. She cited members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as among those coming to the U.S.
The gang originated in a lawless prison in the central state of Aragua more than a decade ago but has expanded in recent years as millions of desperate Venezuelans fled Maduro’s rule and migrated to other parts of Latin America or the U.S.
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly hammered at dangers posed by the gang, sparking criticism that he was painting all immigrants as criminals.
More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have left their home country since 2013, when its economy unraveled and Maduro took office. Most settled in Latin America and the Caribbean, but after the pandemic, migrants increasingly set their sights on the U.S.
The country’s protracted crisis obliterated the middle class and pushed millions into poverty.
Politically, the country is at an impasse after Maduro was sworn in for a third six-year term last month despite credible evidence that former diplomat Edmundo González, who represented the U.S.-backed opposition coalition in the July election, defeated him by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
On Monday, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told reporters her team has been in contact with members of Congress from Florida and other states to address the end of TPS and “find a type of effective protection” for law-abiding Venezuelans.
“We want (Venezuelans) to return but to a free, safe and prosperous Venezuela where no one is persecuted and that they do so voluntarily,” she said. “Criminals are a tiny fraction of Venezuelans who are giving everything to contribute to the American nation.”
Immigration advocates gathered Monday morning at a restaurant in Doral — nicknamed “Doralzuela” for the large Venezuelan community in the south Florida city — to reject the end of TPS.
They said conditions have not improved and it’s not safe to send people back.
“We’re going to use every single legal tool that we have,” said Adalys Ferro, executive director of the Venezuelan American Caucus.
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 say over time, renewal of status becomes automatic, regardless of what’s happening in the person’s home country.
In the waning days of the Biden administration, Noem’s predecessor, Alejandro Mayorkas, extended the protections for Venezuelans until October 2026.
But Noem revoked that decision.
The U.S. doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Venezuela, limiting deportation options. But the Trump administration has made securing deportations to Venezuela a top goal. On Friday, his envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell, traveled to Venezuela and met with Maduro. Six American prisoners there were released following the meeting.
After the visit, Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social that Venezuela agreed to receive back their citizens, potentially breaking the deportation logjam.
Venezuela’s government has so far not confirmed any agreement.
Trump took similar steps during his first term when he tried to end Temporary Protected Status for people from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan. But immigration advocacy groups sued, keeping the restrictions from being pulled.
The news of the TPS termination notice was first reported by The New York Times.
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Associated Press reporter Regina Garcia Cano in Guayaquil, Ecuador, contributed to this report.
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