Biden Expands TPS to Venezuela; While Also Further Militarizing Our Borderland

For Immediate Release: September 21, 2023

EL PASO, TEXAS – Yesterday, the Biden administration expanded temporary protected status for Venezuela, making close to 500,000 Venezuelan migrants eligible to apply for work permits. At the same time, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced another series of harmful actions to increase enforcement across the U.S-Mexico border. 

Marisa Limon Garza, Executive Director of Las Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso Texas, Ciudad Juárez, and New Mexico, shared the following statement:

“Yesterday, the Biden administration announced the redesignation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelans - a positive step forward that will provide new protections and opportunities for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans already residing in the United States. Additionally, this announcement recognizes that individuals who enter the country through CBPOne are eligible for immediate employment, a tremendous improvement. These measures will provide much-needed stability to newly arrived migrants and help relieve communities-at the border and in the interior- doing the essential and humane work of welcome. 

“However, it must not go unnoticed that elements of DHS’ announcement keep doubling down on deterrence–a policy that has been failing the United States at the southern border for decades.  Measures such as resources to speed up the adjudication of deportation orders, the expansion of a family removal program nationwide, and the deployment of military personnel to the border will not stop immigrants from seeking safety and a better life in the U.S.  Instead, they will only make our failures costlier for American taxpayers and more harmful for immigrants and asylum seekers. We must not continue to rely on deadly enforcement practices that tear families apart and harm vulnerable communities. 

“We urge the Biden administration to reconsider these harmful measures.  Likewise, we call on Congress to roll back the excessive presence of patrol officers and vehicles at the border and halt the development of new enforcement infrastructure that perpetuates failed enforcement strategies.  It is essential for the American public to know that another border, more orderly and humane, is possible. It's not too late to make the borderlands a refuge for vulnerable people. The borderlands should not be a place of death and persecution but a source of life for those who depend on it.”