The Trump administration announced on Wednesday that hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans living in the United States would lose their deportation protections and work permits under Temporary Protected Status by next week.

The Department of Homeland Security said that the agency had reviewed conditions in Venezuela in collaboration with the State Department, and that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem had determined that the 2021 TPS designation for Venezuela was “contrary to the national interest.”

“Given Venezuela’s substantial role in driving irregular migration and the clear magnet effect created by Temporary Protected Status, maintaining or expanding TPS for Venezuelan nationals directly undermines the Trump Administration’s efforts to secure our southern border and manage migration effectively,” said an agency spokesperson in a statement.

The decision leaves about 350,000 Venezuelans, including many in South Florida, vulnerable to being deported to a homeland deep in crisis and under the repressive governance of leader Nicolas Maduro.

The decision will also be heavily felt in South Florida, the heart of the Venezuelan community in the United States. On Tuesday, advocates and leaders were already reeling from the announcement.

“Venezuelans under TPS are not a burden—they are a resilient community that brings value, hope, and integrity to this nation. Ignoring their reality would be a failure to uphold the fundamental principles of compassion and justice that have long defined the United States,” said Helene Villalonga, a Venezuelan activist and president of the Multicultural Association of Activists for Voice and Expression.

In a separate announcement in February, the Trump administration ended TPS protections for another group of approximately 257,000 Venezuelan beneficiaries, arguing that conditions in the country have changed sufficiently to allow them to safely return. The vast majority currently do not enjoy TPS protections, and only about 5,000 currently have their TPS work permits as a result of ongoing litigation out of a federal district court in California. Their fate lies in the hands of Judge Edward Chen, who has been overseeing that lawsuit.

Substantial evidence suggests that many TPS holders would face severe consequences if repatriated. Many could be subjected to imprisonment, torture, or even death at the hands of the same government they once fled.

“The situation has definitely not improved in Venezuela,” Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, told the Miami Herald in a recent interview. “On the contrary, following the July 28 elections of 2024, repression and political persecution have intensified. We currently have at least 890 political prisoners, including 72 foreigners, and at least 66 people who are missing, with their whereabouts still unknown.”

In addition to political persecution, returning Venezuelans would reenter a country teetering on collapse—maligned by hyperinflation, soaring unemployment, rampant crime, frequent power outages, water shortages and chronic scarcities of food and medicine.

Ironically, the assertion that Venezuela is safe is not consistently reflected across the Trump administration. The State Department has repeatedly urged U.S. citizens to avoid travel to Venezuela under any circumstances.

“Do not travel to or remain in Venezuela due to the high risk of wrongful detention, torture in detention, terrorism, kidnapping, arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest, and poor health infrastructure. All U.S. citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents in Venezuela are strongly advised to depart immediately,” a State Department advisory stated in May.

The Biden administration first granted Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans in 2021, a move that was largely celebrated in South Florida, home to one of the largest populations of people from the South American country. It then created a second TPS designation in 2023 that further expanded the protections so more people would benefit.

In February, the Trump administration ended the 2023 designation, a move which has led to fierce battles in the federal courts. The Trump administration ended the 2021 designation on Tuesday. It is set to expire on Sept. 10.

Wednesday’s announcement will most likely face challenges in the federal courts. Last week, a federal appeals court in San Francisco unanimously affirmed a lower court’s decision to keep TPS while litigation is ongoing. It also ruled that TPS for Venezuelans should be kept until October 2026 because conditions in the country have not improved and Noem had ended it improperly. Venezuelans are now awaiting for the lower Court judge in San Francisco to issue a final determination on the matter.

However, earlier this year, the Trump administration went to the Supreme Court asking the nation’s top judges to intervene in the lower court’s case in an emergency order. It ruled that Homeland Security had the authority to end TPS but did not rule on the merits of the San Francisco case or shut down ongoing court challenges.

In the federal register notice that ended the 2023 designation in February, the Trump administration said that there were notable improvements in areas such as the “economy, public health, and crime” which allowed Venezuelans to go back. It also similarly invoked the argument that the TPS designation was not in the national interests of the United States.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has targeted Venezuelans through his mass deportation efforts. He has ended a parole program for several countries that allowed over 117,000 Venezuelans to legally live and work in the United States for two years and invoked a wartime act to send hundreds of Venezuelans the government accused of being gang members to a notorious terrorist prison in El Salvador.

The end of TPS also comes one day after the Trump administration blew up a boat, killing 11 people which federal officials say were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua transporting drugs to the United States. Typically, boats engaged in the illicit drug trade would be intercepted at sea by federal authorities and occupants are processed through the penal system.

Adelys Ferro — the director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, which took the Trump administration to federal court over the end of the 2021 protections — said that it’s a contradiction that the administration is launching an aggressive campaign against drug trafficking and gangs in Venezuela while saying that Venezuelans in the United States can return.

“We will continue fighting,” she said.

José Antonio Colina, the president of the Miami-based Organization of the Politically Persecuted Venezuelans in Exile, said that his hope now rested on the District Court.

“In the midst of all this political and military situation between the United States and Venezuela, sending Venezuelans back there, where their lives are at risk, is basically exposing them to a death sentence,” he said.

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