Legislators and Immigration Advocates Condemn US Supreme Court Ruling Stripping Venezuelans of TPS

NEW YORK, New York – Caribbean-American Democratic Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke and immigration advocates have strongly condemned the United States Supreme Court ruling stripping more than 350, 000 Venezuelans of Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

Venezuelans praising former president Joe Biden for granting TPS (File Photo)The US Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Donald Trump administration to move forward with revoking TPS for more the Venezuelan immigrants, paving the way for their loss of work authorization and putting them at risk of deportation.

The highest court’s decision came a month after a US federal appeals court rejected the administration’s request for a stay of a district court order blocking the termination of TPS for Venezuelans.

“With a single shameful Supreme Court ruling, more than 350,000 Venezuelans who were promised and granted refuge from the brutal dictatorship they fled will find themselves in the grips of that regime again,” Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).

“Make no mistake: this is a humanitarian betrayal of unprecedented proportions. Weaponising the suffering of the most vulnerable people on the planet just to appear tough on immigration to his base is a new level of despicable behavior from this president,” said Clarke, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, who represents the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, New York,

She said to add insult to injury, while Trump shuffles Black and Brown people back to their countries, kidnaps legal residents, and condemns others to the most notorious prisons in the world, he chooses to offer asylum to South African Apartheid sympathisers.

“Trump’s cruel and xenophobic agenda has been built on misinformation, scapegoating and labeling all those looking for a better life as criminals,” she said, adding that the judicial branch has given him a pass to continue politicising the struggles of migrants and furthering his unconstitutional immigration policies, “and that is truly disgraceful”.

President and chief executive officer of the New York Immigration Coalition,

Murad Awawdeh, said that the lives of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who have long made New York their home are now in jeopardy.

“Stripping our neighbours of their immigration status, after they have established their home here in New York and contributed to the economic and cultural fabric of this state, will have devastating consequences for our economy,” said Awawdeh, whose umbrella advocacy organization represents over 200 immigrant and refugee rights groups throughout New York.

“Ending these protections will tear families apart, destabilize our communities, and force people back into the shadows,” he told CMC, adding “we are calling on our elected officials in Albany and New York City to fight back against this cruel and dangerous ruling”.

He said that means advocating for expanded work authorisations and enacting protections for all immigrants to ensure New York employers can keep their workers and build support systems that give immigrant New Yorkers a real opportunity to live safe and dignified lives in our city.

“This isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the one that will keep New York State whole,” he continued.

Make the Road New York (MRNY), another immigrant advocacy group, described the US Supreme Court’s ruling as “devastating”.

“Hundreds of thousands of lives have been upended, with many people now facing the fear and uncertainty of being ripped away from their loved ones or returned to harm,” MRNY Co-Legal Director, Harold Solis, told CMC.

“Though the decision is temporary, its immediate impact will reach far and wide. Still, Make the Road New York will not stop fighting to protect Venezuelan TPS holders who have built their lives in this country.

“Our clients and members, along with their families, loved ones and neighbours, deserve the safety and stability they have been legally promised, not the brutality shown by this administration,” he said.

Solis said MRNY’s separate lawsuit defending TPS for Venezuelans is still making its way through the courts, “and we remain steadfast in seeing it through until the end.

“The law is on our side; fairness is on our side; we will prevail,” he affirmed.

On Monday, the US Supreme Court justices announced that they would permit the Trump administration to terminate TPS for Venezuelans pending appeal of the case.

In late March, a US federal court in San Franciso, California blocked the administration’s attempt to strip hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants of TPS while the case moves forward.

The San Diego, California-based immigrant advocacy group, Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA), who, among others, represented the plaintiffs in the case, said US District Court Judge Ed Chen’s ruling protects about 350,000 Venezuelan TPS holders who were set to lose their work authorization on April 3 and deportation protections on April 7.

HBA’s executive director, Guerline Jozef, has “unequivocally” condemned Trump’s decision to terminate the legal status of more than 500,000 Haitian, Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan migrants admitted under the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole programme, popularly known as the CHNV programme.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had said it would officially end the programme on April 24.

Venezuelans living in the US were first granted TPS in 2021. The then secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro N Mayorkas, said the Biden administration had taken the decision “due to extraordinary and temporary conditions in Venezuela that prevent nationals from returning safely

Jozef said terminating this programme is “not just an immigration rollback, it’s an orchestrated effort to unleash ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency), tear apart families, and criminalize the very existence of people of color on US soil, consistent with the agency of Project 2025 (the Conservative policy agenda).”

Jozef, therefore, called on Democrats and Republicans to “publicly denounce this move, defend the CHNV programme, and take legislative action to protect those at risk.

“Silence is complicity,” she added.