Trump can end the pain and panic in South Florida by re-extending TPS for Venezuelans | Opinion

The pain in Miami is palpable as the deadline gets closer for some Venezuelan immigrants to leave the country. On April 2, unless something changes, 348,202 Venezuelan immigrants who have been in the United States legally under a program called Temporary Protected Status may find themselves suddenly undocumented. They will lose work permits and deportation protections because the Trump administration is revoking a Biden administration extension to the program.

This is not the same thing as someone who has remained here illegally. These are people, our neighbors, business owners, friends and relatives in South Florida, are being told to go back to a country that has been ruined by a dictator, a place that, if anything, has gotten more dangerous as the Nicolas Maduro regime becomes even more repressive. Since 2014, nearly 8 million people have left Venezuela as part of a massive exodus.

Only the Trump administration can provide a reprieve for these TPS-holders by re-extending their protected status. That could happen if President Trump’s South Florida allies — mainly our Republican congressional delegation — make a good case to the president.

This shouldn’t be a partisan issue. And on the Miami-Dade County Commission on Tuesday, it — mostly — wasn’t.

Commissioners voted unanimously in favor of a resolution by Commissioner René Garcia, a former Miami-Dade GOP chair, that urged the Trump administration to maintain all TPS designations currently in place for people from countries like Venezuela, Haiti and others. (Commissioners Kevin Marino Cabrera, named by Trump to be the ambassador to Panama, and Roberto Gonzalez, a vocal Trump supporter, stepped away before the vote).

TPS is a federal program that allows migrants from certain countries to temporarily live and work legally in the U.S. while conditions in their home countries are unsafe. But keeping Venezuelans on TPS isn’t just a matter of humanitarian relief.

As Maureen Porras, vice mayor of Doral, a city nicknamed Doral-zuela for its large Venezuelan population, has said, Venezuelan immigrants “have played a crucial role in keeping our economy thriving,” the Herald reported. If they are forced to leave, she said, “we would be left in a serious economic downturn and could potentially lead to the collapse of our local businesses.”

The Miami-Dade congressional delegation needs to push hard on this issue. So should former U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, the Miami-born son of Cuban immigrants who’s now Trump’s secretary of state.

Republican U.S. Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart, Carlos Gimenez and María Elvira Salazar issued a statement last week calling out the “brutal and repressive regime” of Maduro and saying “it is still not safe” in Venezuela for many immigrants to return. On Thursday, Diaz-Balart sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asking her to protect Venezuelans without criminal records from deportation.

In an interview with Channel 10, Diaz-Balart added: “I’m hoping that we will have the opportunity to speak with the president and his administration... to make sure that we get back to a process that works, including for those who have legitimate cases of asylum.”

Miami-Dade’s Republican congressional delegation is walking a tightrope. They have staunchly supported Trump and his tough immigration agenda. Yet they also represent a county that’s prosperous in large part because of the contributions of immigrants, many who fled dictatorships. Their responsibility should be to their constituents.

About 600,000 Venezuelans have TPS. More than half of them are set to lose their status in April, with the remaining protections expiring at the end of September.

Noem told NBC News on Sunday that “folks from Venezuela that have come into this country are members” of the gang Tren de Aragua. No doubt, people on TPS or other parole programs who commit serious crimes should be deported, but Noem was echoing false and dangerous generalizations.

Experts say that the number of Tren de Aragua members who have come into the U.S. are very small. Adelys Ferro, executive director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, said at a news conference this week that only around 600 TPS recipients have ties to the criminal organization, the Herald reported.

Law-abiding Venezuelans should not be grouped with a minority of bad actors. They are more than Trump’s political pawns and action is needed now to allow them to remain in the U.S. and South Florida.

Click here to send the letter.

This story was originally published February 5, 2025 at 2:58 PM.