Venezuelans overjoyed by temporary residency opportunity in U.S.
MIAMI — Maria Ortiz left Venezuela almost four years ago when she realized her job opportunities were nonexistent. Freshly graduated from college with a degree in petroleum engineering, she boarded a plane and traded her dream of a professional career for a better quality of life in the U.S.
Ortiz has since worked in restaurant kitchens in Maryland, earning enough to raise her 2-yearold daughter and make ends meet even during the pandemic. But their life may change drastically this year after the decision of President Joe Biden’s administration to offer temporary legal residency to several hundred thousand Venezuelans who fled their country’s humanitarian crisis.
“I am very happy to know that I will have legal stability, that I will have the opportunity to choose a good job,” said Ortiz, 25, who hopes she can find a job that matches her engineering skills. “Feeling the relief of knowing that I will be here, that they will not take me out of the country, that relief of knowing that I will be truly safe causes me great emotion.”
The U.S. government on Monday announced it would grant temporary protected status to Venezuelans already in the United States, allowing an estimated 320,000 people to apply to legally live and work in the country for 18 months. The move, which former President Donald Trump had resisted, was welcomed by immigrants, advocates and lawmakers, some of whom had introduced a measure with the same goal.
People must show continued residency and pass a criminal background check to qualify for the status. Venezuelans must have arrived by Monday to be considered for the program. Those eligible to apply include people who have a pending asylum case and those whose asylum claim was rejected but remain in the U.S.
Venezuela is mired in a deep political, social and economic crisis attributed to plummeting oil prices and two decades of mismanagement by socialist governments. Millions live in poverty amid high food prices, medication shortages, low wages and four-digit inflation. That has pushed about 5 million Venezuelans to flee in the past few years, mostly to neighboring South American countries, but many have settled in South Florida.
Many of those who immigrated to the U.S. have applied for asylum, but escaping a humanitarian crisis does not automatically result in the approval of an asylum case in the U.S. More than 50% of asylum applications from Venezuelans have been rejected over the past few years, said Michael Kagan, law professor and director of the immigration clinic at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.
“As long as someone does not have a significant criminal record, it’s a pretty straightforward application, and I would expect nearly all to be approved,” Kagan said referring to the temporary protected status program.
Human Rights Watch on Tuesday urged Biden’s government to expand eligibility to Venezuelan asylum seekers who were sent to Mexico to await the processing of their case under the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as Remain in Mexico. The international monitoring group said about 2,700 Venezuelans are in that position.