U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem delivers remarks to staff at the Department of Homeland Security headquarters on Jan. 28, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta-Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will not renew temporary protections for more than 350,000 Venezuelans who were granted those protections in 2023, paving the way for them to potentially face deportation by spring, according to a Monday prepublished Federal Register notice.
In the notice, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem revoked one of two Temporary Protected Status designations for Venezuelans, arguing that renewing TPS for the 2023 Venezuelan recipients is “contrary to the national interest of the United States.” She has cited gang activity as one factor in her decision.
Those 2023 TPS holders will have work permits and deportation protections until April.
President Donald Trump has ramped up immigration enforcement, signing a memo to open 30,000 beds for migrant detention in the military base Guantanamo Bay.
On Sunday, during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Noem would not answer questions from host Kristen Welker if migrant women, children and families who lack legal status in the United States would be held at Guantanamo Bay.
“You know, if you look at what we are doing today of targeting the worst of the worst, we’ve been very clear on that,” Noem said. “The priority of this president is to go after criminal aliens that are making our streets more dangerous.”
Legal pathways limited
The Trump administration has curtailed legal immigration pathways created under the Biden administration, such as ending humanitarian parole for asylum seekers and ending a separate program that granted work permits and protections for nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela if they had a U.S. sponsor and passed a background check.
Last week, Noem revoked the 18-month TPS extension for Venezuelans, something the Biden administration did shortly before leaving office. The extension under the Biden administration offered protections until October 2026.
Lawsuits likely
Litigation is likely to follow Monday’s announcement, as it did in 2018, when Trump ended TPS designations for Haiti, El Salvador, Sudan and Nicaragua, but was blocked by the courts.
Countries receive a TPS designation if it’s deemed too dangerous for a national to return to their home due to war, disaster or other unstable circumstances, rather than for reasons of “national interest.”
“In particular, the Secretary has determined it is contrary to the national interest to permit the covered Venezuelan nationals to remain temporarily in the United States,” according to the notice.
Noem said that TPS designation for Venezuela has “resulted in associated difficulties in local communities where local resources have been inadequate to meet the demands caused by increased numbers.”
She also argued it led to the arrival of a Venezuelan gang called the Tren de Aragua, or TDA.
That same reasoning could be used to justify ending TPS for the second group of Venezuelans.
Two groups
There are two categories of TPS recipients from Venezuela. About 250,000 Venezuelans have had TPS since 2021 and another 350,000 have had TPS since 2023.
Those 2021 recipients have TPS protections until Sept. 10. Noem has until July 12 to decide if she will renew protections.
TPS is usually for a limited time, about 18 months, and allows a national from that country to work and live in the United States and be protected from deportation proceedings.
TPS is not a legal pathway to citizenship, but recipients can apply for asylum if they are eligible while holding the TPS status.
“I think that this move is going to raise questions for many TPS holders about whether their designations are safe now, especially now that it’s not just about the country conditions, but about how the Trump administration defines public national interest,” said Julia Gelatt, the associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that studies migration.
Trump earlier protected Venezuelans
On Trump’s final day in office in 2021, his administration issued 18-month deportation protections for Venezuelans — known as Deferred Enforcement Departure, or DED — citing the country’s unstable government under President Nicolás Maduro.
“Through force and fraud, the Maduro regime is responsible for the worst humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere in recent memory,” according to the Jan. 19, 2021 memo. “A catastrophic economic crisis and shortages of basic goods and medicine have forced about five million Venezuelans to flee the country, often under dangerous conditions.”
Following the Trump administration’s 18-month DED designation, the Biden administration issued the TPS designation for Venezuela.
Noem has criticized the Biden administration for renewing TPS designation for Venezuelans and has pledged to review the designation of 17 countries that hold that status.
“This program has been abused and manipulated by the Biden administration, and that will no longer be allowed,” Noem said during her confirmation hearing.
She made similar remarks in her Sunday interview with NBC.
“The (TPS) program has been abused, and it doesn’t have integrity right now,” Noem said. “And folks from Venezuela that have come into this country are members of TDA.”
All TPS recipients — roughly 1 million — undergo a security screening and background check in their application.
“This administration’s evaluating all of our programs to make sure they truly are something that’s to the benefit of the United States, so that they’re not to the benefit of criminals,” Noem said.
Those 17 countries under TPS status include Afghanistan, Burma, Cameroon, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Lebanon, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen.