Spanish
Washington.- The United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said this Wednesday that the thousands of Venezuelans who will lose the immigration protection known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS) can apply for asylum in the North American country.
This was stated by the head of US diplomacy the day after the Supreme Court upheld President Donald Trump's plan to revoke the TPS of 350,000 Venezuelans, who will be eligible for deportation.
"Now, people who have received TPS will apply for the asylum process. And I believe that many of them, if not most, will have very credible asylum applications," Rubio stated during a hearing in the House of Representatives.
Rubio, who as a senator was a great defender of TPS and very critical of the Government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, however, accused the previous Administration of Joe Biden (2021-2025) of having delivered that protection in a generalized manner without adequately reviewing the beneficiaries' backgrounds.
The Secretary of State said that "of course" most Venezuelans with TPS are not criminals, but pointed out that some are: "If a thousand of them are, we have a big problem."
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The Trump administration's decision to end TPS has been criticized by Democrats, migrant advocates, and the Venezuelan community in the United States, who claim that those who are deported to Venezuela will suffer serious danger.
The TPS is a migratory program created in 1990 with which the United States grants permits in an extraordinary way to immigrants from nations affected by war conflicts, natural disasters, epidemics or other conditions that do not make the return of nationals to their countries of origin safe.
