Venezuelans in Utah decry Trump administration decision ending deportation protections

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

Some Venezuelans in Utah are decrying the Trump administration decision to end deportation protections for many in the community.
The decision affects 348,202 Venezuelans across the nation.
Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem argues, in part, that conditions have improved in Venezuela, but those in the Venezuelan community strongly dispute that.

SALT LAKE CITY — Representatives from Utah's Venezuelan community are taking issue with the federal decision ending the designation that had allowed some from the South American country to seek safe haven in the United States.

In a notice published Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote that she based the decision to end the temporary protected status designation, or TPS, in part on "notable improvements" in the country with regard to crime and economic and health matters. She also determined that keeping that designation would be "contrary to the national interest" because Venezuelans benefitting from the program are overwhelming resources in the communities where they live.

The change takes effect April 7 and will affect 348,202 Venezuelans across the country currently covered under the program, which lets them live and work in the United States and shields them from deportation. Perhaps 250,000 more Venezuelans are covered under a separate temporary protected status designation that expires on Sept. 10 and isn't impacted by Noem's new determination, initially announced on Feb. 1.

Despite Noem's contentions, Mayra Molina and Antonio Valbuena challenge the notion that conditions have improved in Venezuela, echoing others from Venezuelan communities around the country. They are among the estimated 10,000 to 20,000 Venezuelans in Utah, many of whom fled the country due to the repressive government of President Nicolás Maduro and Hugo Chávez before that.

"As we see it, conditions haven't changed," said Valbuena, who's seeking asylum in the United States and now lives in Herriman. The decision, he said, came as a "shock" to many.

Molina, originally from Venezuela but now a naturalized U.S. citizen, maintains that Venezuelans forced to return to Venezuela could be jailed for treason for having left the country in the first place. More than 7.7 million have left the country in all in recent years "in search of protection and a better life," according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, most of them to other Latin American countries.

"It's a really concerning situation," said Molina, who leads the Venezuelan Alliance of Utah, which helps represent the local Venezuelan community. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates there are around 10,657 people from Venezuela in Utah of varied migratory status, while Molina thinks the number is in the 15,000 to 19,000 range, most of them covered by the temporary protected status program.

In Noem's notice, she also cited the presence in the United States of members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and gang members' role in sex trafficking, police shootings and other criminal activity. Criminal activity by Tren de Aragua is a focus of increasing concern among many Utah leaders and President Donald Trump, though the extent of the gang's presence in Utah remains unclear. More broadly, cracking down on immigrants here illegally is a priority issue for Trump.

Molina, however, noted the rigorous criminal background checks those seeking temporary protected status face by U.S. authorities. Moreover, both she and Valbuena dismissed inferences that seem to be implicit in some immigrant foes' criticism that criminality is the norm among the Venezuelan population in the United States. Most, she said, favor calls for removal of immigrants here illegally who have committed crimes.

"We're disappointed, too, because the secretary comes out and says, 'Oh, yeah, all Venezuelans belong to Tren de Aragua,' which is not true," Molina said. Venezuelans in the United States by and large follow the law, and some have been waiting for years for the opportunity to normalize their migratory status.

While some Venezuelans who lose temporary protected status may be able to apply for asylum, Valbuena suspects many will be out of luck after Noem's latest decision, potentially facing deportation. "At this point, they don't have any other option," he said.

Some in Utah's local Venezuelan community are taking part in letter-writing efforts to get U.S. lawmakers to take action to aid Venezuelans in the country. The Trump administration's "reinterpretation" of conditions in Venezuela "is unfounded and arbitrary," reads a letter that's part of the initiative.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.