Florida lawmakers push bipartisan bill to extend TPS to 'law-abiding' Venezuelans

Florida lawmakers Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Miami), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Weston) and Darren Soto (D-Orlando) introduced a bipartisan bill to reinstate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to "law-abiding" Venezuelans.

The bill presented by lawmakers proposes to automatically designate Venezuela for TPS for an initial period of 18 months with an option to renew, which would give relief to the large community of Venezuelans living in the U.S. who find themselves in legal-political limbo as their country continues to face the socio-political consequences of Nicolas Maduro's regime.

"The oppression of the Maduro regime and the total failure of socialism of the 21st century has created dangerous conditions in Venezuela and a constant threat of political persecution," Maria Elvira Salazar said, who is a Cuban-American and has engaged with the Venezuelan, Nicaraguan and Cuban communities to protect their immigration statuses due to the political situation in these three countries ruled by communist dictators.

"That’s why I am proud to co-lead the Venezuela TPS Act of 2025 — to ensure law-abiding Venezuelans currently in the United States can stay here until conditions improve and they are not forcibly returned to a brutal dictatorship," the Congresswoman added.

Democrats Schultz and Soto, despite having marked policy differences with Salazar, agreed that the Venezuelan community is exposed to the brutality of the Maduro regime, questioning the Trump administration for attempting to end TPS.

"It is simply wrong to subject law-abiding Venezuelan families to a criminal, murderous regime that openly and flagrantly violates human rights. TPS recipients are not criminals — they are here legally and nobody with a criminal record is eligible for protection," Rep. Schultz said.

TPS for Venezuelans at serious risk

The bill's introduction comes at a defining moment for the Venezuelan population in the U.S., with the Trump administration pursuing a campaign of mass deportations while the Supreme Court decides whether or not it is legal to nullify TPS for the more than 600,000 Venezuelans residing in the country under this legal status, albeit with different designations.

Last February, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem canceled Venezuela's 2023 designation as an applicable country for TPS, causing the benefits related to this designation to end on April 7, 2025.

Some Venezuelans are protected by the 2021 designation, which will remain in effect until September 10, 2025.

A lawsuit filed by seven Venezuelans at risk of deportation and the advocacy group National TPS Alliance challenged the Trump administration's attempt to end TPS in a San Francisco court. 

The lawsuit took effect, with Judge Edward Chen, of the San Francisco District Court temporarily freezing the revocation of TPS for Venezuelans that Noem anticipated for April 7. With his ruling, the judge prevented the removal of protections for more than 300,000 Venezuelan citizens benefiting from the 2023 designation.

According to Chen, the federal government may have violated administrative procedures and fundamental rights with the decision.

On May 1, the legal battle intensified, with the federal government asking the Supreme Court justices to overturn Judge Chen's March decision, arguing that immigration policy and decisions such as revoking TPS rests exclusively with executive branch authority and not with a lower court judge.

Today, May 9, was the last day to argue before the Supreme Court in favor of TPS. In an event organized by the Venezuelan American Caucus, dozens of Venezuelans held a vigil in more than fifteen cities across the country as a show of support for immigration protections.