'Beyond betrayal.' Venezuelans in Florida are angry at Trump immigration policy [View all]

"MIAMI — Venezuelan migrants in South Florida say they feel betrayed by a Trump administration decision to end legal protections for hundreds of thousands of people who fled dictatorships and sought refuge in the U.S."

"The move by the Trump administration is a turnabout of a long-standing U.S. policy that has extended TPS (temporary protected status) to more than a half-million Venezuelans. On NBC's Meet the Press Sunday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she believed the designation had been abused. 'Remember,' she said, 'Venezuela purposely emptied out their prisons, emptied out their mental health facilities and sent them to the United States of America.'"

"Venezuelan Americans say that's simply not true. Venezuelans started migrating in large numbers to the U.S. in the 1980s. The numbers surged in recent decades as people fled the political and economic turmoil of the authoritarian regimes of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro."

"Nearly 400,000 people who left Venezuela now live in Florida. Adelys Ferro, the director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, says, 'We are human beings who work here, who are small business owners.' Ferro says Venezuelans exiled here "actually believe that the TPS was the right way to get legal in the United States, to have our work permits, to have a social security number, to be able to buy a house.'"

"Florida's largest Venezuelan population is in Doral, a Miami suburb. Ferro and other activists held a press event there Monday but didn't want any TPS recipients to speak out. They were worried they could be targeted for deportation by federal immigration authorities."

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/04/nx-s1-5285470/venezuelans-florida-tps-immigration-trump

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Several of my Venezuelan friends in Miami, people who fled the Chavez and Maduro economic and political upheavals, are literally seething about Trump's vilification of their community, and the disappearance of innocent individuals without any due process. They're extremely angry about Noem's claim that "Venezuela purposely emptied out their prisons, emptied out their mental health facilities and sent them to the United States of America."

Miami-Dade media is really covering this story. Many of these Miami Venezuelans voted for Trump. Now "el leopardo que se come las caras" has come to Miami.