Camilo Montoya-Galvez The Biden administration on Wednesday offered nearly half-a-million Venezuelan migrants in the U.S. the ability to live and work in the country legally, approving a...
Camilo Montoya-Galvez
The Biden administration on Wednesday offered nearly half-a-million Venezuelan migrants in the U.S. the ability to live and work in the country legally, approving a longstanding request from cities struggling to house asylum-seekers.
The Department of Homeland Security expanded, or redesignated, the Temporary Protected Status program for Venezuelan migrants, allowing recent arrivals to apply for the deportation protections and work permits offered by the policy. CBS News first reported the move earlier Wednesday.
By redesignating Venezuela's TPS program, the U.S. is rendering the record number of Venezuelans who have reached the U.S. over the past two years eligible for the status. An estimated 472,000 additional Venezuelans are expected to qualify for TPS, which has already allowed about 242,000 migrants from that country to obtain the status, according to DHS figures. Venezuelans who reached the U.S. after the end of July will not qualify for TPS.
"Temporary protected status provides individuals already present in the United States with protection from removal when the conditions in their home country prevent their safe return," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. "That is the situation that Venezuelans who arrived here on or before July 31 of this year find themselves in."
The Biden administration has used TPS on an unprecedented scale, making record numbers of migrants from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Myanmar, Sudan and Ukraine eligible for the program.
The administration has also kept in place long-standing TPS programs for El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Nepal, reversing the Trump administration's efforts to terminate them. TPS has long been criticized by Republicans who argue it had been improperly used to give legal status to migrants, some of whom entered the U.S. illegally, for indefinite periods of time despite its temporary nature.
The Biden administration, however, has internally resisted at times expanding TPS programs for certain countries, such as Nicaragua, due to concerns about encouraging more migrants to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally with a generous immigration announcement.
Pressed by CBS News on whether they feared that expanding the TPS policy could fuel more migration, administration officials said they hoped to dissuade Venezuelan migrants from entering the U.S. illegally by setting a cut-off date for the program in July.
Illegal crossings along the southern border have reached record levels under the Biden administration. While they dropped to a two-year low in June, unlawful border crossings increased sharply in July and August, testing a carrots and sticks strategy the administration unveiled earlier this year with the hopes of slowing down U.S.-bound migration.
Camilo Montoya-Galvez
The Biden administration on Wednesday offered nearly half-a-million Venezuelan migrants in the U.S. the ability to live and work in the country legally, approving a longstanding request from cities struggling to house asylum-seekers.