In city built by waves of immigration, TPS ruling is more than a blow to Venezuelans | Opinion

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday delivered a shock wave of a ruling for Miami and Venezuelans on Temporary Protected Status, some 350,000 of whom could be subject to deportation even as a case challenging the Trump administration’s revocation of their status moves through the courts.

This is a blow for TPS holders and South Florida given the large number of Venezuelans who live here. The sheer number of people who may be forced to leave the country amounts to an anti-Miami story. This is the place that has received wave after wave of migrants and refugees — from the Freedom Flights leaving Cuba in the 1960s and 1970s and the Mariel boat lift of 1980 to the Venezuelans who have fled Nicolás Maduro’s regime and economic chaos.

If deportations happen at the mass scale that President Donald Trump has promised, we’re not just talking about individual harm but also harm done to local businesses and the local economy that these migrants support with their labor and patronage.

In other words, this could have a devastating impact on our communities. The revocation of TPS will likely affect our neighbors, co-workers, family members and friends.

Miami-Dade’s Venezuelan community has suffered repeated setbacks: The Supreme Court ruling comes after a decision by the city of Doral, where Venezuelans make up more than a third of the population, to allow police to help federal authorities detain undocumented migrants. That could extend now to TPS holders, given that the Trump administration has moved to strip their work permits and deportation protections.

And Doral was far from alone. The city joined Coral Gables, Hialeah, West Miami and Miami Springs as Miami-Dade municipalities align with the state’s and Trump’s immigration agenda.

Under the Monday decision, the Supreme Court granted a request from the federal government to lift a lower court injunction that had stopped the revocation of TPS for around 350,000 Venezuelans. The high court’s order remains in place while the legal challenge to the revocation moves forward. It stems from a lawsuit filed when the Department of Homeland Security, after Trump took office, ended an extension the Biden administration granted for a group of Venezuelans whose TPS status was about to expire.

The TPS program offers temporary deportation protection and work permits for people from countries where conditions are considered unsafe for their return. Under Trump, Haitians — the target of a baseless rumor accusing them of eating pets in Ohio, a claim Trump perpetuated on the debate stage — have also had their TPS revoked.

In Venezuela, conditions have continued to deteriorate. Maduro has shown no signs of easing his authoritarian rule. Diseases like malaria and measles are spreading amid the collapse of the healthcare system. There are power outages and frequent water shortages. Inflation has spiraled out of control and more than five million Venezuelans face hunger, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Violent crime is widespread.

Those forced to return to Venezuela may face dire consequences in a country on the verge of collapse. As Juanita Goebertus, Americas Director at Human Rights Watch, told the Miami Herald, “The situation has definitely not improved in Venezuela. On the contrary, following the July 28 elections, repression and political persecution have intensified. We currently have at least 890 political prisoners, including 72 foreigners, and at least 66 missing persons whose whereabouts remain unknown.”

It’s unclear how quickly things will change for those Venezuelan TPS holders who are working, studying, renting or owning homes in the U.S. One thing is for sure for now: Their dreams of building a life in the U.S. have been shattered and replaced with fear.

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This story was originally published May 19, 2025 at 3:47 PM.