March 8, 2021

Biden Will Grant Thousands of Venezuelans Temporary Protected Status to Stay in the United States

More than 300,000 people could benefit from the program which follows in Colombia’s footsteps.

Dozen of Venezuelans in DC protest against Maduro.Lenin Nolly/Sipa USA/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

In a significant policy change, the Biden administration will allow Venezuelans in the United States to apply for temporary protected status for a period of 18 months, effective tomorrow. TPS provides relief from deportation and work authorization to citizens of countries experiencing armed conflict, environmental disaster, or extraordinary conditions that compromise their safety. An estimated 320,000 people from Venezuela living in the US as of March 8, 2021 could benefit from the program. The Los Angeles Times first reported the shift regarding the status of Venezuelans, citing information from congressional sources.

Since 2014, more than 5 million Venezuelans have fled political turmoil, economic instability, and an ongoing humanitarian crisis under Nicolás Maduro’s socialist regime in what has become the largest exodus in Latin America’s recent history. Most have settled in neighboring South American countries, with Colombia‘s government being noteworthy for its welcoming policy. In February, President Iván Duque announced that the government will provide legal status to 1.7 million migrants from Venezuela for 10 years, a move that has been lauded as an example not only for the region, but the world.

During his presidential campaign, Joe Biden promised to extend TPS to Venezuelans living in the US. Between 2017 and 2019, Venezuela ranked among the top five countries of origin for asylum seekers coming to the United States. 

Today’s decree will mark a departure from former President Donald Trump’s approach of pressuring Maduro—by imposing sanctions and showing support to the opposition leader Juan Gauidó—while denying temporary status to those fleeing widespread hunger, violence, and persecution. During his final hours in office, Trump did sign an executive order halting the deportation of thousands of Venezuelans for 18 months. But critics described it as “a political act, not a humanitarian one.”

Although the lesser-known Deferred Enforced Departure program offered similar relief to TPS, it still left many in a legal limbo to apply for work authorization and at the discretion of the next administration. The United States deported hundreds of Venezuelans back to their home country under Trump. Democrats have continued to push for TPS, a more secure form of protection.

“After years of empty rhetoric from the previous administration, today’s decision to provide Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans in the United States marks a major victory in our efforts to build a fair and humane immigration system,” said Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who has pushed for legislation to grant temporary status to Venezuelans. “To keep deporting Venezuelans back to Maduro’s tragedy would be to tell them they are a burden on our communities, a menace to our national security, and an unwelcome guest in our country. Reality and our national interest are precisely the opposite.” 

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate