The U.S. Supreme Court has granted the Trump administration’s request to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for approximately 350,000 Venezuelans, allowing their deportation while an appeal proceeds in a lower court.
TPS provides beneficiaries with work authorization, protection from deportation, and travel permissions. The protections for Venezuelans were scheduled to expire in October 2026, but Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem pushed to end the protections a year earlier. Deportations could begin immediately.
The ruling will have the greatest impact in Florida, which is home to about 225,000 Venezuelan TPS holders, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Although a federal judge in San Francisco blocked the termination in March, the Supreme Court’s ruling allows the policy change to proceed while legal challenges continue in lower courts.
For many Venezuelans who sought refuge in the United States, the decision has increased fear and uncertainty. This includes those who have spent years building lives under what they believed were legal protections. Several who live in South Florida agreed to speak about the decision but declined to give their names for fear of deportation or retaliation by immigration authorities.
“It’s very sad… What do I have left now?” said a 20-year-old TPS holder from Miranda state, near Caracas. “I was promised protection not long ago. I came to this country to be a good citizen, to work, to earn a living, and not bother anyone.”
Others expressed a similar feeling. A 19-year-old woman from Mérida, in the mountains south of the capital. She’s studying at a college in Miami, but the ruling has taken a toll on her mental health.
“I’ve lived with a lot of anxiety lately,” she said. “I’m scared to even leave Florida, scared to be at home, scared to be at work. When the deportations started, I told my mom we needed to install a camera in the house.”
She has applied for asylum, but said: “There’s always this fear that they might do something to us.”
A woman from Maracaibo who lives in Doral noted that systemic failures have worsened the panic.
“It is unjust to make a decision like this without evaluating each case individually,” she said. “There are hundreds of Venezuelans waiting on asylum decisions for over ten years… and the fault isn’t theirs—it’s the inefficiency of the immigration system.”
She explained that her entire family had relied on TPS and her pending asylum case to keep her out of harm’s way.
“When TPS became available, it gave us a second legal option,” she said. “But now we’re back to just waiting again with no guarantee we’ll even get a response.”
The decision also provoked a strong response from Florida’s congressional delegation.
Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat co-chair of the Venezuela Democracy Caucus, called the Court’s ruling “atrocious” and issued a statement:
“Venezuelan TPS holders fled the Maduro regime and built lives in America. They sought refuge in America from his oppression and tyranny. This atrocious decision allows Trump to deport non-criminals back to this murderous dictator. This fight is not over. We must pass my Venezuela TPS Act to keep our community safe.”
She proposed a bipartisan bill earlier this month with Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar and Democrat Darren Soto to reinstate TPS and provide a legal pathway to permanent residency for many of those affected.
Salazar also voiced concern. In a statement posted to X.
“I’m deeply disappointed with today’s Supreme Court decision to abruptly end TPS for over 350,000 Venezuelans,” she wrote. “Venezuela’s dictator Nicolas Maduro also leads Tren de Aragua—a transnational criminal enterprise. We must not send innocent people back into the grip of a narco-terrorist.”
She urged the Trump administration to offer a form of temporary clemency called “Deferred Enforced Departure” as an alternative form of relief.
With the ruling now in effect, advocates and lawmakers are preparing for the potential consequences.
Immigration attorneys warn that many Venezuelans may be deported despite having pending asylum or other protections. Meanwhile, Venezuelan families are left with impossible decisions—whether to stay in a country that once offered hope and opportunity, to prepare for sudden displacement, or to just leave.
As the young woman from Merida summed it up: “You try to build a life here, surround yourself with people who make you better—and now, all of it feels like it can be taken away overnight.”
Added the 20-year-old from Miranda state: “You don’t know if it’s worth continuing to study or work when any day they might just tell us, ‘Leave, because we don’t want you here.’”
