DENVER — Immigrant rights activists and legal experts are calling on the Trump administration to reinstate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelan immigrants following the Trump administration's arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
TPS allows immigrants from countries experiencing armed conflict or natural disasters to legally live and work in the United States temporarily.
The Trump administration ended TPS for Venezuelans last year.
“Venezuela has had multiple TPS designations throughout the years," Jazmin Chavez, an affiliate faculty member at Metropolitan State University of Denver specializing in the the history of Latinos in the U.S. and the undocumented experience, said. "Notably in 2021 and then later again, in 2023. Each one had a different eligibility cutoff date so that people had to have continuous presence here.
"What that does is, people who are already here within a certain time are eligible, those that arrive after that specific time are not going to be eligible. The Biden administration, at the time, had used TPS status because they recognized the economic sanctions that were driving people out of Venezuela.”
Chavez said as Maduro continued to operate as a dictator and the U.S. sanctioned Venezuela and issued embargoes, the country became increasingly unstable.
“(That) has caused people to leave because there's not a lot of economic opportunity, right, which led to what we saw, even here in Denver and in Colorado, as we saw people arrive from Venezuela seeking a better life,” Chavez said.
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Activists and community leaders are calling for TPS to be reinstated because the arrest of Maduro has led to even greater instability, Chavez said.
“We know the oil companies have moved in already," she said. "An estimated $2 billion of oil revenue is expected to come to the United States, but that doesn't guarantee any kind of economic stability for the country. There is no conversation at all around the human rights defense work in terms of what has been happening in Venezuela and how to protect people who have been leading human rights work in the area. So, there's a great sense of uncertainty for the people of Venezuela.”
On Thursday, a small group of Senate Republicans joined Democrats to advance legislation that would block U.S. President Donald Trump from using the U.S. military to engage in hostilities in Venezuela without Congress authorization.
Chavez said TPS would give U.S. leaders time to figure out a more permanent response and solution.
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