Kristi Noem, the US homeland security secretary, said on Sunday that the US wants a leader in Venezuela who will be “a partner that understands that we’re going to protect America” to stop drug trafficking and “terrorists from coming into our country”.
Noem indicated in an interview on Fox News Sunday that the immigration status of Venezuelan nationals living in the US under temporary protected status (TPS) was part of an administration-wide decision-making process that her department would follow.
“Venezuela today is more free than it was yesterday,” Noem said, adding that “every individual that was under TPS has the opportunity to apply for refugee status”. She added: “We need to make sure that our programs actually mean something, and that we’re following the law.”
Four months ago, Noem terminated the 2021 Biden-era designation of TPS for Venezuela, affecting over 250,000 Venezuelans living in the US, after determining it is “contrary to the US national interest”. Those covered joined around 350,000 Venezuelans stripped of temporary protected status under a previous order.
Florida is home to over half of Venezuelan TPS holders in the US who have seen their legal status and work permits revoked under the Trump administration, with many there now in legal battles to remain in the US.
On Saturday, Elaine Higgins, the Democratic mayor of Miami, called on the Trump administration to restore TPS status to Venezuelan immigrants in the US saying the revocation “was reckless, dangerous, and wrong”.
“The instability unfolding in Venezuela today makes it even clearer that the country remains unsafe for people to return. No one should be forced back into chaos and uncertainty,” Higgins added.
Under the order stripping Venezuela of TPS status, a DHS spokesperson has said that Venezuela’s “substantial role in driving irregular migration” to the US had “directly” undermined the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
Noem said that Donald Trump’s message to Venezuela’s Delcy Rodriguez, named interim president by authorities following Nicolás Maduro’s capture by the US on Saturday, were “very matter-of-fact and very clear: you can lead or you can get out of the way, because we’re not going to allow you to continue to subvert American influence and our need to have a free country like Venezuela to work with rather than to have dictators in place who perpetuate crimes and drug trafficking.”
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