On January 28, 2025, the Secretary of the Department Homeland Security (DHS), Kristi Noem, submitted a Notice to the Federal Register vacating the January 17, 2025, notice from the Biden Administration that extended a Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Venezuela for an additional 18 months. DHS will now revert to the TPS redesignation and extension guidance that was announced in October 2023. As of September 30, 2024, there were over 500,000 Venezuelan nationals protected by TPS. Once TPS expires, Venezuelans who qualified will lose their ability to work in the United States and beat risk of being detained and subject to removal.
TPS is a form of administrative immigration relief that is determined and implemented by the executive branch, although the authority for TPS is authorized by statute in the Immigration and Nationality Act. TPS is most often used for cases of ongoing armed conflict or environmental disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions, as specified by law. Those who qualify for TPS are issued a registration document and are protected from deportation while a TPS designation is in place for their country of origin, and they are eligible to apply for an Employment Authorization Document, allowing them to be employed lawfully and have workplace rights, for the period during which the TPS designation remains active.
President Trump originally established protections from deportation for Venezuelans on January 19, 2021, the day before his presidential administration ended, in the form of Deferred Enforced Departure, a similar form of humanitarian protection to TPS. Later under the Biden administration, broader protections for Venezuelans were issued in the form of TPS. The January 17 designation extended until October 2026. If Sec. Noem’s vacatur is not challenged or overturned by a court, one group of Venezuelan TPS holders will see their protections expire this April and another in September of this year. Sec. Noem has until February 2 to decide if DHS will take any action with respect to the Venezuelan TPS holders whose protections expire in April. She has until July 12 to decide about the group whose protections expire in September. If Sec. Noems takes no action, the TPS protections automatically extend for another six months, but then expire.