The Supreme Court has allowed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to cancel legal protections for some 348,000 Venezuelans living in the U.S. with Temporary Protected Status, also known as TPS.
A total of nearly 700,000 Venezuelans in all have received the right to live and work legally in the U.S. under the program — another 242,000 recipients are expected to lose protections after a September 2025 expiration date.
As of now, they've lost their legal right to live and work in the U.S., pending a possible appeal of the case. The TPS program provides refuge in the U.S. for people who fled economic crises, political instability, and violence in their home countries.
The decision impacts the Venezuelans who obtained TPS in 2023 until an April 7 expiration date this year.
The Trump istration ended former President Joe Biden's original 18-month extension for protections.
Venezuelan exiles previously told WUNC that the news is devastating for many Venezuelan families in North Carolina.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, called the court's decision “a win for the American people and the safety of our communities," according to NPR.
A TPS holder speaks with WUNC
WUNC spoke to one impacted college student in the Triangle who says that's not the reality of Venezuelan exiles in the U.S.
She says the U.S. is abandoning a group of people seeking refuge and the legal right to work and build productive lives.
The 27-year-old student spoke to WUNC on the condition of anonymity out of fear of being targeted for deportation. She was granted TPS in 2023 after she arrived to North Carolina from the Venezuelan capital of Caracas.
"Venezuelans are not criminals," she said in an interview. "We're just trying to have a better life and have a future and follow our dreams."
Roughly 8 million people have left Venezuela over the last decade due to a crackdown of government dissent and a well-documented economic crisis leading to scarcity of basic essential services under the authoritarian regime of Nicolás Maduro.
Last year, Maduro won a third six-year term in a race contested as fraudulent by the opposition. After protests broke throughout the country, government authorities arrested more than 2,000 people, including more than 100 minors, Reuters reported.
The impacted TPS holders had a brief moment of relief when a federal judge paused the Trump istration's plans to end TPS a week before the legal protections were set to expire.
A federal American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit had been filed on behalf of Venezuelan TPS holders after the government first announced in February that it would cancel it.
North Carolina is home to approximately 25,000 Venezuelans, including many TPS recipients and asylum seekers, according to local Venezuelan organizations.
"Losing the TPS ... I was just going to be in this period of uncertainty," said the Venezuelan student. "You are in this like, nothingness. I just breathe. You cannot (legally) work, you cannot drive, you're just existing."
With the court's latest decision, the impacted people who have sought refuge in the U.S. may be at risk of deportation if they didn't already have another form of legal status, such as humanitarian parole, a student visa, or another refugee status.
"I'm still preparing myself in therapy to be like, 'Okay, there's a reality (where) you're going to have to go back, start from zero again, and then maybe leave for another country,'" she said.
She says she decided to stay in the U.S. after visiting with a tourist visa when she realized there was a legal pathway — like TPS — to staying in the U.S. and seek economic refuge.
The student said she applied for and received a student visa this year after learning that her TPS protection was in jeopardy. But it doesn't ensure a long-term help, she said, since a student visa will only be active during her remaining years seeking a college degree.
"It was like, 'Okay, I can breathe now because I'm not going to get deported,'" she said. "I was having anxiety finishing my last semester of classes. In that limbo, I couldn't move my future. One day I'm here studying, and the next day, I'll probably be back home."
The promise of living under a renewable TPS protections allowed her freedom in choosing employment and was her hope for the future.
"My main goal still trying to get citizenship as an American, because I really love this country, and I adapt really well to it," she said. "It's more freedom, it's more calmness ... security of (having) my basic needs."
