Biden extends temporary protected status for Venezuelans days before leaving office

Michael Wilner, Miami Herald on Jan 10, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has extended for 18 months the temporary protected status to about 600,000 Venezuelans living under the program in the United States, 10 days before President Joe Biden is set to leave office, the Department of Homeland Security said Friday.

The extension of the TPS program for Venezuelan nationals is “due to extraordinary and temporary conditions that prevent eligible Venezuelan nationals from safely returning” to their country, the department said, citing the “severe humanitarian emergency” Venezuela currently faces.

Venezuelan nationals are eligible to remain under the program if they have continuously resided in the United States since July 31, 2023, or earlier. Applicants are carefully screened and are disqualified from the program if they have been convicted of a felony or two misdemeanors.

In a similar announcement, the Biden administration also extended the temporary protection to more than 200,000 Salvadorean citizens residing in the United States for more than two decades, citing that “environmental conditions in El Salvador that prevent individuals from returning.”

Also on Friday, the Biden administration announced a $25 million reward for information that leads to the arrest or conviction of Nicolás Maduro, who currently controls Venezuela, and his minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello.

On Thursday, the Maduro regime briefly detained a chief political rival, Maria Corina Machado, in a raid ahead of Maduro’s inauguration ceremony for the Venezuelan presidency, and amid protests against his attempts to hold on to power. The United States and European Union have concluded that Maduro lost the country’s presidential election last year to Edmundo González, and has suppressed the results in a violent crackdown.

Over 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled the South American country over the past 10 years to escape from the dire economic conditions, the violence and political persecution they attribute to the regime. Most of the exodus has ended up in neighboring Latin American countries, but an estimated 900,000 of them currently reside in the United States.

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