WASHINGTON – As one of his last acts in office, President Trump has authorized a program to give work permits and protections against the deportation of Venezuelan immigrants to the U.S. without legal permission, an action that President-elect Joe Biden had promised to take. term during the 2020 campaign.
The designation formally known as deferred forced exit offers legal protections to any Venezuelan national present in the United States from January 20, 2021 for 18 months. This is likely to benefit at least 94,000 Venezuelans in the country without authorization as of 2018, according to the Institute for Migration Policy, although analysts believe the current number is likely to be higher.
The Trump movement is seen as a form of pressure the U.S. government can put on Nicolas Maduro, the authoritarian Venezuelan leader whom the Trump administration has targeted with sanctions, a limited travel ban and other measures. In January 2019, the U.S. officially recognized the country’s opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, as Venezuela’s interim president.
During the 2020 campaign, Mr. Biden said he would offer temporary protection status to Venezuelan immigrants should they win the election, addressing a major request from the Venezuelan-American community in Florida that he was courting. TPS is roughly identical to the deferred forced exit program in the protections it offers. The DED is issued directly by a president, while the national security secretary has to approve the TPS.
Republicans and Democrats in Florida have been pushing for this decision to be one of the largest Venezuelan populations in the United States, and the White House has long had no doubt about whether to make the move.