The United States government announced TPS for Venezuelans in March 2021 and established that it would only benefit those who arrived before March 9 of that year. This condition leaves out thousands of Venezuelans who have arrived in the country following that date, who fear being deported in the coming months.
Recently the Joe Biden administration extended the app of TPS until March 2024, but did not change the requirements to benefit. The situation caused concern in more than 160,000 Venezuelans who will not be able to benefit from the program, whose benefits include the possibility of working and stopping deportations.
The number of Venezuelans who have crossed the border irregularly has increased exponentially: in the nine months between October 2021 and June 2022, the border patrol had nearly 112,200 encounters with Venezuelans, more than twice as many as in the entire fiscal year. 2021.
The Venezuelan community and a bipartisan group of legislators have asked the United States authorities to redesign TPS to protect those who arrived more recently and have not been able to regularize their situation. In addition to them, there are Venezuelans with deportation orders who also do not have TPS and would be left helpless with the end, on July 20, of another program known as DED, which has stopped the deportations of all Venezuelans since January 2021, for 18 months. .
More than 423,000 Venezuelans live in the United States, according to information from the 2019 Census Bureau. According to the government, some 343,000 might benefit from TPS. The vast majority – some 231,000 – have already applied, but due to delays in the government, only regarding 30,000 had been approved as of December 2021.
Some experts say those left out of TPS have reason to be concerned.
“Unfortunately it has a negative impact on the Venezuelan community for people who entered following March 8,” he told The Associated Press immigration attorney José Guerrero.
He explained that if these people do not have any other immigration resource, such as a legal relative who has claimed them, a request for adjustment of status or family reunification, or a valid asylum, they run the risk of being deported.
