The situation of Venezuelans in exile is marked above all by uncertainty. Since the United States’ removal of former President Nicolás Maduro, Venezuelan communities across the United States and Latin America must weigh the risks of returning against the fragility of the protections they still hold.
Venezuelans had already been living in a vulnerable situation in recent months. In September 2025, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would end a form of humanitarian aid, terminating the 2021 designation of Venezuela for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in the United States. Venezuelans were urged to “self-deport.”
Earlier in 2025, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had taken steps to end deportation protections for about 300,000 Venezuelans. The September termination affected an additional 250,000 Venezuelan immigrants who had arrived in the United States and had enrolled in the 2021 TPS program.
“Given Venezuela’s significant role in driving irregular migration and the clear pull factor created by Temporary Protected Status, maintaining or expanding Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelan nationals directly undermined the Trump Administration’s efforts to secure our southern border and manage migration effectively,” a Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement.
That decision was followed by the cancellation of yet another program, the humanitarian parole program, that had allowed more than 100,000 Venezuelans to live and work legally in the United States for two years.
Temporary Protected Status (TPS)
TPS has been used for decades to shield people from deportation who are already living in the United States when their home countries have faced armed conflicts, natural disasters, or unsafe conditions.
Families who had built lives in the United States suddenly found themselves destabilized.
Both Republican and Democratic administrations have extended protections for immigrants from certain countries, although some Republicans have argued that the TPS program, which was meant to be temporary, has lasted too long.
“I still believe that there is no clarity on how what is happening in Venezuela can affect or benefit the Venezuelan community, but at this moment we are seeing that they are being persecuted, detained, and many of them deported from the United States,” José Palma, coordinator of the National TPS Alliance, told NPQ.
He pointed out that many Venezuelans have been living in the United States for years, raising children who have grown up there. Many are afraid to return to Venezuela because of the current instability, since safety cannot be guaranteed. He emphasized that a legislative solution is the only path to achieving permanent status for people with TPS, given the Trump administration’s recent rescissions of protections for Venezuelans in the United States.
The consequences of this revocation were immediate for thousands of Venezuelans who lost their work authorizations, driver’s licenses, and legal protections. Advocacy groups warned that over 300,000 Venezuelans faced the possibility of deportation or detention, while many others opted to leave to avoid legal risks. Families who had built lives in the United States suddenly found themselves destabilized, with children pulled from schools and jobs interrupted.
Over one million Venezuelans live in the United States. The Pew Research Center estimates that the population doubled in just five years, rising from 545,000 in 2021 to 1.2 million in 2024. The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) confirms that the United States has become a key destination for the 7.9 million Venezuelan migrants worldwide.
The Trump administration’s offensive against humanitarian parole and TPS places hundreds of thousands of migrants…at risk of deportation, detention, and the loss of basic rights.
Education levels are striking: 48 percent of Venezuelans over the age of 25 hold a university degree, a rate higher than the US national average. They are doctors, engineers, teachers, and professionals contributing to critical sectors such as healthcare, education, and services.
Yet the lack of stable immigration status threatens to push this highly skilled community into precarious conditions.
The June 2025 update from Refugees International made clear that the assault on humanitarian parole and TPS not only undermined migration stability but also eroded the social and economic integration of entire communities in the United States.
The organization urged continued support for the Let Them Stay campaign to defend the dignity and safety of those who had found protection through these programs. Refugees International warned that the Trump administration’s offensive against humanitarian parole and TPS places hundreds of thousands of migrants—among them Venezuelans but also Haitians, and Nicaraguans—at risk of deportation, detention, and the loss of basic rights.
Few Remaining Options
Rachel Schmidtke, senior advocate for Latin America at Refugees International, told NPQ that people of nine nationalities can be deported from the United States to Mexico—Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, and the three Central American countries: Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.
She explained that deportees are generally transferred across the land border into northern Mexico, where the Instituto Nacional de Migración (National Immigration Institute) transfers them by bus to southern Mexico, usually to Villahermosa. Schmidtke added that many Venezuelans remain stranded there, with limited options to apply for asylum due to the ongoing crisis in Mexico’s refugee system.
“If the United States is going to intervene in Venezuela, it has a responsibility to ensure that Venezuelans are not deported into such a complex and uncertain situation created by its own actions,” she said.
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After Maduro’s arrest, Mayor Eileen Higgins of Miami, FL, urged the Trump administration to restore TPS for Venezuelans. That hope, however, quickly dissipated when Noem asserted that the nation is “freer today than it was yesterday” and that those stripped of TPS could alternatively apply for asylum.
With the loss of TPS, applying for asylum has become one of the few remaining options for Venezuelans seeking to avoid deportation.
“There are people who entered the asylum process nine years ago and are still waiting.”
The Task of Organizations and Nonprofits
Luciano Pedota, president of the board of directors of the Illinois Venezuelan Alliance, explained that asylum must generally be requested within one year of arrival, but many who relied on TPS missed that deadline.
Immigration lawyers are now helping people file late applications by requesting exceptions, since the only safeguard available is to have already applied—or to be applying now while asking authorities to forgive the delay.
“We must continue reinforcing verified, adequate, and responsible information,” Niurka Meléndez, cofounder and director of Venezuelans and Immigrants Aid (VIA), said in an interview with NPQ. “Without a doubt, this must remain the task of the organizations—especially the community-based ones—because we are always present, week after week, on the ground, in the front line with the community.”
Among their roles, organizations and nonprofits supporting Venezuelan migrants work with Congress to ensure protections remain in place. In July 2025, Representatives Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) and Veronica Escobar (D-TX) unveiled an updated version of the bipartisan DIGNIDAD (Dignity) Act (HR 4393), described as the most serious attempt at comprehensive immigration reform in decades.
The bill seeks to balance border security with humanitarian protections by mandating E-Verify for employment eligibility verification nationwide, creating humanitarian campuses to process asylum claims within 60 days, and launching a seven-year “Dignity Program” for undocumented immigrants who arrived before December 31, 2020.
Participants would gain work authorization, protection from deportation, and travel permits, though without access to federal benefits or a path to citizenship. The legislation also proposes a US Worker Fund, financed through restitution payments from immigrants, to invest in training programs for American workers. At the same time, Rep. Salazar has joined other colleagues in introducing the bipartisan Venezuelan Adjustment Act, which would grant permanent residency to Venezuelans who arrived in 2021 but excludes those who obtained TPS in 2023, sharply limiting its scope.
Yet, in an increasingly challenging environment for migrants within the United States, it seems highly unlikely that these proposals will gain traction.
Meléndez emphasized that organizations have the task of raising awareness in the community about the asylum process. “There are people who entered the asylum process nine years ago and are still waiting….That is why this educational narrative of raising awareness must continue to be the role of community-based organizations,” she said.
Activists from the Venezuelan diaspora stress that two main conditions must be met to guarantee a safe return: a stable economic environment that allows reintegration, and the restoration of civil and political liberties. Without both, any return would put migrants in potential danger.
Luciano explained, “We are talking about civil liberties. There has to be freedom of expression, the right to protest, and the right to assemble. These fundamental rights remain subject to the regime’s discretion, and until they are guaranteed, a safe return cannot be considered.”
For More on This Topic:
As Mayor, How Can Mamdani Advance Immigrant Wellbeing?
How Immigrants Are Creating a New World in the Shell of the Old
No Appointment, No Asylum: What Does True Asylum Justice Require?
