In a week full of significant accomplishments for the Biden-Harris administration, which is focusing successfully in the efforts to control the pandemic, redressing its socioeconomic consequences with the passage in Congress and signing into law by President Biden of the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill; another decision of special relevance for the Venezuelan-American community, celebrated by the Latino communities at large, becomes a reality: the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Venezuela.
For several years I had devoted significant part of my advocacy to the cause of protecting Venezuelan refugees under the label #TPSParaLosVenezolanos.
The situation of Venezuela has evolved from what began as a neo-authoritarian government, with a malignant populist rhetoric, under Hugo Chavez; to the current significant deterioration of living conditions for Venezuelans, who struggle under a dictatorial regime by his handpicked successor Nicolas Maduro, whose government rules with severe human rights violations to prevent dissent, squandered the oil wealth of the nation, and destroyed what once was one of the most promising democracies and economies in Latin America.
The latest report from the prestigious High Commissioner for Human Rights to the United Nations, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, is clear evidence of the magnitude of Venezuelan regime’s repression, and its oppressive character amidst a profound humanitarian crisis. The country conditions, well documented in the TPS designation decree enacted by Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, in consultation with the State Department, confirms that Venezuelans are fleeing a regime that not only practices political repression, but which also has established the reign of fear and terror (the U.N. High Commissioner Bachelet denounced—as we did a few years ago in IQLatino—the horrible practices, including extra-judicial executions by paramilitary groups affiliated with the regime). Beyond this political situation, the economic and institutional collapse in Venezuela has negatively and severely impacted food security and healthcare. The magnitude of the Venezuelan exodus accounts to more than 5 million refugees, who walk through the border with Colombia or Brazil, and from there to other neighboring countries in South America. In addition, thousands who could invested their limited resources to end up in Europe (mostly in Spain), with 320 thousand refugees landing in the United States.
My advocacy for TPS for Venezuela started in 2016, in the early stages of the evolving humanitarian crisis of the country out of the political deteriorating conditions. In 2017, a bipartisan effort was initiated by legislators Debbie Wasserman-Shultz (D-FL) and Carlos Curbelo (R-FL), with the sympathy of Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Marco Rubio (R-FL). However, with the election of Donald Trump in November 2016, events took rapidly a different turn, while the deterioration of conditions in Venezuela accelerated. The Trump administration developed incrementally a confrontational rhetoric that appeared to prioritize the Venezuelan crisis, but focused on the narrative of “extreme pressure” and “regime change,” which included the implementation of bipartisan measures (first adopted by the Obama presidency under the Menendez-Rubio Act to protect human rights and society, which ultimately evolved to the codification brought by the bipartisan VERDAD Act).
Bipartisan measures included sanctions against the Nicolás Maduro regime officials, the non-recognition of his Presidency after the electoral fraud of 2018, and the recognition of the President of the National Assembly Juan Guaidó, as the interim President of Venezuela, including the freezing and protection of important Venezuelan State assets in the United States such as CITGO. While some of these bipartisan measures and tools of foreign policy were potentially appropriate or needed, the strategies, rollout and implementation by the Trump administration escalated chaotically and unilaterally, with only one objective: making Venezuela a political proxy of the Cuba issue in Southeast Florida, in order to exploit, for electoral purposes, the trauma lived by both communities.
In such context, TPS became a non-starter for Trump and his White House, who claimed instead that they would deliver a regime change, including bluffing the use of force, which debilitated the multilateral coalition to bring democratic changes to Venezuela.
The same day of the TPS designation, Elliott Abrams, the former Trump Special Envoy for Venezuela and Iran, wrote that the very reason Trump never considered granting TPS to Venezuelans was the anti-immigrant (xenophobic, I must say) ideas prevailing in the ideologues at the White House. In such context, TPS Venezuela became a legislative cause embraced fearlessly by Senator Bob Menendez, and members of the FL democratic delegation led by Representative Darren Soto. Their bills never passed in spite of the co-sponsorship of Florida republicans such as Senator Marco Rubio or Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart (whose efforts could only persuade Trump of literally a last minute, on his last day in office, decision of granting Deferred Enforcement Departure (DED), for 18 months, to Venezuelan undocumented migrants subject to removal). DED of course provides no certain migration status, and was short and late for the needs of Venezuelan refugees. At that time 96,000, Venezuelans had pending asylum petitions, with thousands vulnerable to becoming undocumented (or already undocumented), and more than 3,000 Venezuelans were still facing deportation proceedings, while hundreds remained detained in ICE centers, without proper care for the coronavirus among other humiliating conditions.
In 2019, as the situation aggravated, I worked, with the support of Tom Pérez as Chair of the Democratic Party, and together with the leadership of the Hispanic Caucus, to pass a DNC resolution that declared TPS Venezuela a priority for the Democratic Party, which later became included in our party platform. During the 2020 Convention I spoke out about the issue. It was heartwarming when President Joe Biden made it a campaign promise that he delivered, as he had pledged, within the first 100 days of his administration.
The Venezuelan Community in the U.S. is growing and vibrant. Entrepreneurial, honest and hardworking, committed to American values. There are more than 500,000 Venezuelans in the United States, of which close to 150,000 are citizens like me and my family. The Biden administration has announced it will continue with the efforts to restore democracy and enforce human rights protections in Venezuela, as well as address the humanitarian crisis, but this time with a renewed multilateral approach focused on directing all the pressure to create diplomatic pathways for a negotiated and peaceful solution to the political stalemate of Venezuela, which includes the possibility of multilateral humanitarian relief, concurrent with a clear and credible route to free and fair elections. This is, unquestionably, the correct approach, but it will take time. Therefore, the humanitarian crisis that has forced Venezuelan migration into our country requires no less than TPS. Given the complexity of the crisis and the individual families’ conditions, many growing strong roots here in the United States, in their journey as refugees, we remain vigilant to ensure and advocate that longtime refugees and holders of TPS status are eligible for permanent residency (and eventually a pathway to citizenship) under the immigration reform now pending in Congress.
Photo: Twitter/Venezolanos con Biden