Demonstrators in Miami, Fla., protest what was widely seen as a rigged election in Venezuela in 2019 that kept President Nicolas Maduro in power. Venezuelans in the United States have now lost their temporary protected status under President Donald Trump. (Photo: VOA)
Jan. 31, 2025 by David Silverberg
Correction: Feb. 2 — Rep. Darren Soto’s party affiliation was initially incorrectly listed. He is a Democrat.
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.), an outspoken foe of authoritarian Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, while praising President Donald Trump for his immigration crackdown, is otherwise staying silent as Venezuelan asylum-seekers in his district face deportation.
On Tuesday, Jan. 28, the US Department of Homeland Security revoked temporary protective status (TPS) for 600,000 Venezuelans granted permission to live in the United States.
Many of these Venezuelans live in Doral, Fla., in Diaz-Balart’s district. Of Doral’s seven Zip codes, six are fully in the 26th district and one he shares with Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-28-Fla.).
According to 2020 census figures, 30 percent of the residents of Doral, Fla., were of Venezuelan origin.The town’s total population as of 2023 was 79,359 people. Overall, an estimated 640,000 people of Venezuelan origin resided in the United States in 2021, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
Many of these people are under TPS, which grants migrants permission to reside in the United States for 6, 12 or 18-month periods while their longer-term status is determined. TPS can be granted to migrants when their home country has been determined to be too dangerous for residence because of civil strife, environmental or other life-threatening causes. For example, in 2010 Haitian migrants were granted TPS following a massive earthquake in Haiti.
Ironically, Diaz-Balart, along with Rep. Darren Soto (D-9-Fla.), was a sponsor of the Venezuela TPS Act in 2019. It passed the House and was initially resisted by Trump but he signed it into law just prior to his departure in 2021. President Joe Biden’s administration granted TPS to Venezuelan migrants in March 2021.
Under the terms of TPS, the Venezuelans can live and work in the United States and can travel abroad and return.
The Venezuelans were allowed in the United States because conditions in Venezuela under Maduro were deemed too harsh economically and politically.
At the time Diaz-Balart stated that “[w]e must not force Venezuelans who have sought safety in the United States to return to such dangerous conditions.”
On Jan. 20, Diaz-Balart hailed Trump’s inauguration as “a new golden age in America.”
On Jan. 29, Trump signed the Laken Riley Act, a law named after a young woman in Georgia who was murdered by an undocumented Venezuelan migrant last February. The law authorizes officials of the Department of Homeland Security to arrest and detain aliens who have committed crimes and gives states the standing to sue the federal government for failures to enforce the law. It is the law that is being widely used in roundups and deportations of migrants with criminal records.
The same day, Diaz-Balart and Reps. Carlos Gimenez (R-28-Fla.) and Maria Elvira Salazar (R-27-Fla.), all of whom have districts that include numerous Venezuelans, issued a joint statement supporting Trump and the migrant crackdown.
Saying that the Maduro regime was “one of the world’s most repressive dictatorships” and its failures had forced millions of Venezuelans to flee, it stated: “Unfortunately, we have seen how some individuals, such as members of the Tren de Aragua [a Venezuelan gang] have exploited our generosity and flouted our laws, with connections to both the Maduro regime and organized crime.”
It also noted that Trump had granted Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) status to Venezuelans in the United States, ensuring their safety. DED, in contrast to TPS, provides an indefinite period of refuge to aliens at the president’s discretion.
It concluded: “The Venezuelan people have endured repression, corruption, and human rights abuses for far too long in Venezuela, and it is still not safe for many to return. We will continue to do everything possible to ensure that those seeking freedom from persecution and oppression are protected.” (Emphasis ours.)
On Jan. 24, Salazar, whose district includes many resident aliens, wrote a letter to the Acting Secretary of Homeland Security asking for leniency for non-criminal migrants.
“I’m urging Homeland Security to PROTECT Cubans awaiting legal status adjustment through the Cuban Adjustment Act,” she stated in a posting on X. “We must ALSO protect the Venezuelans and Nicaraguans without a criminal record going through the asylum process. Don’t penalize them for Biden’s screw-ups!”
She expressed concern over how immigration enforcement would be implemented. She also insisted “Individuals must be afforded due process.”
However, to date, other than his joint statement with Gimenez and Salazar, Diaz-Balart has not publicly weighed in on behalf of the Venezuelans in his district, whose legal status he was instrumental in protecting in 2019.
Meanwhile, with TPS revoked, legal Venezuelan residents in the 26th Congressional District and elsewhere are dependent on Trump’s indulgence in extending them DED protection from deportation.
Liberty lives in light
© 2025 by David Silverberg
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