The Department of Homeland Security is rescinding recent extensions of migrant protections for roughly 600,000 Venezuelans that would have allowed them to remain in the US with legal work authorization until at least October 2026.
The Biden administration extended a Temporary Protected Status designation for Venezuela—along with Ukraine, El Salvador, and Sudan—in its final week.
The move to rescind the extension was first reported by the New York Times. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed the cancellation in an appearance on Fox News Wednesday morning, saying that the Trump administration wouldn’t follow through on a move to “tie our hands.” She linked the decision to the administration’s plans to crack down on the criminal organization Tren de Aragua, which originated in Venezuela.
“This is part of our plan to make sure that we’re protecting America and keeping it safe again just like President Trump promised,” Noem told the hosts of Fox & Friends.
Observers said rescinding the extension, while unprecedented, matches Trump’s campaign rhetoric on the program and fits broader plans to wind down temporary protections whether through TPS or other programs to legally admit migrants like parole.
TPS designations allow migrants to temporarily apply for protections from deportation and work permits when circumstances in their home countries prevent them from safely returning. The protections last for just 18 months though and DHS must re-assess conditions 60 days before a designation expires to decide if they should be renewed or not.
‘Transparently Nonsensical’
The Jan. 17 extension by former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas consolidated two groups of eligible Venezuelan immigrants for TPS benefits through separate designations in 2021 and 2023 for renewed protections through next year. A notice signed by Noem said vacating the extension was necessary to “untangle the confusion” over combining those two populations.
That justification for rescinding the extended protections was “transparently nonsensical,” said Ira Kurzban, a partner at Kurzban, Kurzban, Tetzeli, & Pratt P.A.
“It certainly is not something that would ever legitimately form the basis to revoke,” he said. “The attitude of this administration is ‘we don’t care what the law is. Let somebody go to court.’”
No administration has vacated an extension of TPS relief before now, said former DHS official Tom Jawetz, now senior fellow for immigration policy at the Center for American Progress. The statute governing the program doesn’t contemplate a previous determination being reopened except through the periodic review process.
The notice signed by Noem restores the original expiration dates for TPS recipients from Venezuela. DHS must make a decision this week about whether to extend the 2023 designation, which is set to expire in April. Otherwise, protections would automatically renew for six months. The earlier 2021 designation expires in September.
The decision fits with the Trump administration’s previous statements about limiting the use of temporary status for immigrants, said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.
“Rescinding protections like this does widen the pool of potentially deportable people and could facilitate faster removal,” she said.
Temporary Status
Trump in his first term sought to eliminate Temporary Protected Status for several countries, including El Salvador and Haiti. Although a circuit court eventually upheld the legality of the cancelled protections, they were tied up in court fights until the end of his term. However, he issued the first deportation protections for Venezuelans through the Deferred Enforced Departure process in 2021.
The country has experienced an economic crisis over the past decade pushing many into poverty. The US meanwhile has called out political repression by the government of Nicolas Maduro, who claimed victory in a disputed election last year. The State Department currently has a level 4 travel advisory warning US citizens against visiting Venezuela, citing violent crime as well as crackdowns from police and security forces on protests. It withdrew diplomatic personnel and suspended consular operations in 2019.
No objective review of conditions in Venezuela could determine that the crisis there has subsided, said Daniel DiMartino, a graduate fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Noem’s efforts to connect Venezuelan TPS recipients to criminal gang activity is an excuse for preexisting plans to end TPS, he said, adding that anyone with those protections can already be deported if they commit a crime.
Many TPS recipients have likely sought another status like asylum although it’s not clear how many. While eliminating TPS would make many vulnerable to deportation, it would also block legal work authorization and push them into work without protections.
“This is going to cost taxpayer dollars and it’s not going to remove anybody who’s dangerous,” said DiMartino, who was born Venezuela. “It’s creating illegal immigrants out of nowhere for no good reason.”
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