Venezuelans who already live in the United States, and aren’t citizens, will be allowed to work legally under the new rules that were announced by President Joe Biden’s administration. Around 472,000 people be will eligible for temporary protected status for a period of 18 months. There are following calls by Democrats to expand work access for newly arrived migrants.
However, only Venezuelans who arrived in the US before March 2021 qualify for TPS (temporary protected status). This program was created by Congress in 1990 to provide a temporary safety net for migrants from countries that are suffering from humanitarian crises, such as natural disasters and criminal activity.
By doing so, Venezuela’s TPS program, the US is rendering the record number of Venezuelans who have moved to the US over the past 2 years so they could be eligible for the status. Venezuelans who have reached the US after the end of July are not eligible for TPS. But, in the end, this will benefit more than 400,000 migrants who have crossed the US southern border over the past two and a half years.
The administaration’s announcement is a total win for congressional Democrats and leadersin large cities like New York. Especially when they have been pressuring the federal government, to grant migrants in their communities legal status so they can work, and not rely on local services. New York City in particular is home to tons of migrants, and the majority of them being from Venezuela, where most of them stay in hotels, shelters, tent cities, and other facilities.
“Our adminstration and our partners across the city, have led the calls to ‘Let Them Work,’ so I want to thank President Biden for hearing our entire coalition, including our hard-working congressional delegation, and taking this important step that will bring hope to the thousands of Venezuelan asylum seekers currently in our care who will now be immediately eligible for Temporary Protected Status,” New York Mayor Eric Adams said on Wednesday.
The Biden administration has used TPS on an unprecedented scale, making record numbers of migrants from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Myanmar, Sudan and Ukraine eligible for the program.
