Fort Worth, Texas – Witnessing the trauma that refugees she assists is the hardest part of Ana Maria Fores Tamayo’s job. When she and her husband met Venezuelans living in the United States last year, that trauma was apparent when they traveled to Aurora, Colorado.
The Refugee Support Network’s leader, Tamayo, 69, said, “Everyone is afraid.” Her organization provides assistance to people who are attempting to leave their home countries by requesting temporary protected status (TPS) in the US, among other services.
She described the people she met in Colorado as “they were leaving because things there were terrible.” The majority of them only mentioned how happy they were that they had the opportunity to live here legally.
The US government established TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to nations that have been designated as unsafe to return to from which they have been previously.
Nearly 300,000 Venezuelans would lose their TPS on Thursday, according to President Donald Trump’s announcement in February. However, a US federal judge halted the action the following month, citing racism in the Trump administration’s portrayal of the migrants as criminals.
Andres Pacheco, 64, Tamayo’s husband, claimed the status may soon no longer be an option for some people despite the fact that TPS has traditionally been a “relatively simple process” in comparison to asylum claims.
The only drawback of TPS is that it only lasts for 18 months, according to Pacheco, who provides legal assistance to immigrants in Texas. These are people who “live in uncertainty,” the statement goes on.
A “warzone” in Colorado
According to a Federal Register notice in March, the Trump administration announced that it would revoke the temporary legal status of 530, 000 people, including Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.
Trump’s campaign focused on migrant crime, making migrant crime a key focus despite studies consistently demonstrating that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than US citizens.
Trump also retorted unproven allegations about Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang during campaign rallies, including one in Aurora, where such suspicions had become public. He continued by calling the city a “warzone” and defending Democrats by claiming that “migrant criminals” would “rape, pillage, thieve, plunder, plunder, and kill the people of the United States of America.”
Do you notice what Colorado’s citizens are up to? Trump stated at a Pennsylvania rally that they are “taking over”. Without providing any proof, he continued, “They’re taking over real estate.” They work as Venezuelan real estate developers. They possess tools that the US military does not.
In the months that followed, Tamayo and Pacheco closely watched as Trump repeatedly attacked Nicolas Maduro, a president of Venezuela, while simultaneously demonizing illegal immigrants. Tamayo’s interpretation of those who they encountered in Aurora differed from that portrait.
They had no food, no medicines, and nothing because their country had completely collapsed. They were then forced to leave.
Many Venezuelans who live in the US voted for Trump despite his criticisms.
And despite a federal judge temporarily preventing the Trump administration from terminating TPS for Venezuelans, many are now grappling with the growing uncertainty of their futures.
After Trump controversially invoked wartime legislation to expel them, presidential actions like those taken in March, when the US flew more than 200 immigrants allegedly Tren de Aragua members to El Salvador, only serve to exacerbate those fears.
A Venezuelan-American voter for Trump who resides in Dallas, Luis, claimed to have “never thought” that Trump would attack the relief effort that protects more than half a million Venezuelans from deportation, including some of his cherished ones. He requested anonymity because he was concerned about retribution against his family when he chose to use only his first name.
Trump has acknowledged Venezuela is unsafe, and the 34-year-old said he does understand that he doesn’t want criminals. Why, then, does he want to eliminate the good, devout people? What does he want us to return to, exactly?
Second attempt
Trump has attempted to halt the program before, and this is not his first attempt.
The president attempted to evict people from El Salvador, Haiti, and other countries he infamously dubbed “s***hole countries” during his first term.
Marco Rubio, then a US senator and current Trump’s secretary of state, cosponsored the Venezuela TPS Act and personally advocated for Venezuelans in a letter to then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, which led to his being sued by advocacy groups.
Rubio, however, took a different position on the subject this year.
He wrote, “Designating Venezuela under TPS does not put America and its citizens first or support core American interests.”
Few other Republicans have praised Venezuelans.
Maria Salazar, a representative from Miami, Florida, urged Trump to stop “punishing” immigrants by quashing their humanitarian parole, a process the Biden administration had set up to obtain legal status. Nearly one-fourth of Salazar’s constituents are not US citizens, and more than 70% of them are Hispanic.
According to Salazar, “They came here fleeing failed communist nations because they backed Biden’s empty promises.”
Salazar recently expressed her gratitude for the courts’ efforts to stop Trump from manoeuvring, even going so far as to claim to have “led the fight” to protect TPS. In reality, organizations like the National TPS Alliance, which filed the lawsuit that caused the courts to halt Trump’s actions, have spearheaded the conflict.
A “blessing for my life,” I say.
The National TPS Alliance’s coordinator, Jose Palma, claimed to have given TPS recipients advice in excess of tens of thousands.
He claimed that there are tales of Honduran or El Salvador residents who have spent the past 25 years in the country. Even though they have established a life in the United States, they run the risk of losing their immigration status and facing deportation.
Palma is particularly concerned about parents who have established families in the US and are TPS beneficiaries, making their children US citizens.
According to him, “their children will either need to stay in the United States without their parents or be forced to move to another country” if they are ultimately deported.
After a devastating earthquake, Liz, a native of El Salvador and now in her 50s, arrived in the US in 2001.
Liz, who chose to use her first name out of fear of reprisals, claimed she has since reapplied for TPS roughly a dozen times and that the program has allowed her to start a family and live in a neighborhood she now considers her home.
Although some costs have increased and some documents have become more complicated, the process has been trustworthy: you submit the necessary paperwork and, as long as your country is listed, you receive the status.
Liz said, “TPS is at least one of the many things we need to exercise our rights.”
According to Liz about TPS, “Even if it’s temporary, it’s created a lot of good for the American public.” “We have TPS holders who are leaders in their faith. We have TPS holders who work for US citizens as business owners.
Carmen, a Venezuelan woman who lives in Fort Worth, Texas, echoed Liz’s comments, calling TPS “a godsend” that helped her “start a life I didn’t know I would have.”
“It’s time for you to leave,”
Fort Worth-based Sindy Mata, a 30-year-old community organizer, has also given immigration and humanitarian parole, which is a temporary stay in the United States for urgent reasons.
She claimed that many people in temporary status have been receiving emails from the Department of Homeland Security that read, “It is time for you to leave the United States.”
The administration’s plan to encourage immigrants to begin “self-deporting” is a part of its strategy.
Mata claimed that the emails from the Homeland Security Department were not always the intended result.
“I know a person who said, “Who else got this? ” when they received the email? Who else in the community needs assistance or advice?
When she began establishing connections between people who wanted to keep TPS alive, such as Palma’s, and legal counsel.
