Finding a way to the United States was once a dream, a yearning, a pathway to a better life for many families.
The family of 21-year-old Florida Gulf Coast University entrepreneurship student Erick Tovar took that route, fleeing Venezuela over a decade ago. Seeking political asylum in the U.S., they later obtained Temporary Protected Status visas and are now awaiting the next steps in their case.
“It hit me once when I was out of high school. When I first came to FGCU, I tried to receive some federal aid from FAFSA. I found out that because of my status in the country, which is a pending asylum, I had no guarantee, I had no safety net, and I had no per se record that I was going to stay in the country," Tovar said.
"Most federal aid and most scholarships I was completely denied, and the ones that were need-based, for example, people like me in my case, couldn’t receive, even though I had a great academic GPA, even though I was a student athlete in high school, even though I was heavily involved as far as volunteering with my church and the school itself," he said. "Simply for not hitting that one requirement of being a permanent resident, we were denied.”
His situation is part of a larger issue affecting many Venezuelans in the U.S. The Trump Administration had planned to end TPS protections for thousands of Venezuelans, but a federal judge blocked that decision just one week before the protections were set to expire. The injunction, issued by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco, provides temporary relief for 350,000 Venezuelans whose status under the Biden administration was at risk of expiring on April 7.
The decision comes after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem moved to reverse protections that were previously granted under the Biden administration. While the court’s ruling offers brief relief, uncertainty remains for thousands of other Venezuelan families who are still awaiting the next steps in their immigration cases.
“Many families have their whole plan [set] for the next four years, and now the news is ‘hey, I may or may not have a stay in the country anymore’,” Tovar said. “So, [there’s] a lot of fear, a lot of people were worried, there was a lot of confusion [and] frustration. Many families left without a second thought [because] they didn’t want to fight.”
Despite the ongoing challenges, Tovar’s family has created moments of normalcy. In 2016, they founded Casa Venezuela en Southwest Florida, an organization that helps Venezuelan immigrants navigate life in the U.S. According to the Migration Policy Institute, more than 50% of Venezuelans living in the U.S. reside in Florida. Tovar speaks candidly about their challenges.
“There’s a lot of prejudice that we have received as Venezuelans in this country. It hasn’t been the nicest. The current path that it's taking, it's not going to look any brighter for us right now. We get a lot of people asking us, ‘How do we deal with this?’ Our job as an organization is to bring them hope and do everything that we can here in the States in order to bring more awareness,” Tovar said.
The Trump Administration has filed notice that it would appeal the ruling. The ruling said under the law, federal officials can’t end a TPS designation earlier than the expiration of the most recent extension. The termination would have been the first time an administration removed TPS protections since the U.S. government created it over 35 years ago during the Bush administration.
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