CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) – While the clock is ticking, US President Donald Trump on Tuesday night protected tens of thousands of Venezuelan migrants from deportation, rewarding Venezuelan exiles who were among his most loyal supporters and fearing they would lose the same privileged access to the White House during the reign of Biden.
Trump has signed an executive order postponing the removal of more than 145,000 Venezuelans for 18 months who are in danger of being sent back to their crisis-ravaged homeland. He cites the ‘deteriorating situation’ in Venezuela that poses a threat to national security as the basis for his decision.
“America remains a beacon of hope and freedom for many people, and now eligible Venezuelans in the United States will receive much-needed temporary immigration assistance,” Sen said. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, said in a statement that he praised the decision.
The postponement at the last minute – in sharp contrast to Trump’s difficult immigration policy over the past four years – has marked a busy last day in office, which has also issued a new round of financial sanctions on Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro’s alleged frontman and tightened control to keep espionage technology out of the hands of the Venezuelan army.
But before Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday, the elected president’s attention was to be Foreign Secretary Antony Blinken, who during his confirmation of the US Senate in Washington showed continued support for Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó.
Blinken said in his first comment on Venezuela that he would continue to recognize Guaidó as the interim president of Venezuela, and indicated that he had no illusions of an eventual dialogue with Maduro, whom he called a ‘cruel dictator’.
The veteran diplomat nevertheless expressed frustration over the results of the current US approach, which did not shake Maduro’s power to power or lead to free and fair elections. He said there was room for adjustment of sanctions and better coordination with allied countries to restore democracy in the crisis-stricken South American country.
“The difficult part is that for all these efforts, which I support, we are obviously not getting the results we need,” Blinken said.
The Trump administration was the first of more than 50 countries in the world to recognize Guaidó as Venezuela’s president shortly after the young lawmaker acted two years ago to challenge Maduro’s rule. Foreign Minister Michael Pompeo spoke to Guaidó by telephone on Monday, expressing his “personal respect and appreciation” to the opposition leader for his “commitment to the cause of freedom”, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Venezuela, a once-rich oil-producing nation, has plunged into an economic and political crisis in recent years, with a flood of more than 5 million people disrupted by public services and shortages, including a lack of current water, electricity and petrol.
Most migrated to other parts of Latin America. According to the Center for Migration Studies in New York, there are an estimated 350,000 residents in the U.S., and about 146,000 of them have no legal status.
More than 700 Venezuelans have been removed from the U.S. since 2018, while 11,000 more are under deportation procedures, according to Syracuse University’s TRAC immigration database.
For years, Venezuelans, with the support of two parties, have been advocating for the so-called temporary protected status, as Trump has sought to end the program for migrants from six other countries, including Haiti, Nicaragua and El Salvador.
Trump’s order provides similar protection, including protection against deportation and the right to work, but has still been met with resistance by some Democrats who want Biden to introduce legislation that provides additional guarantees.
“Our community will no longer be deceived and used for political games,” said Leopoldo Martinez, the first Venezuelan-born member of the Democratic National Committee.
In the latest round of sanctions that Maduro is trying to express, the U.S. Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on three individuals, 14 businesses and six ships. All are accused of helping the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA evade earlier US sanctions to prevent the president from making a profit from crude sales.
The sanctions target people and businesses linked to Alex Saab, a Colombian businessman who, according to U.S. officials, is Maduro’s leading man responsible for everything from food imports to the country’s crude oil exports. Saab was arrested last year on the basis of a US warrant in the African country of Cape Verde over what Maduro said was an official mission to Iran to buy supplies. He is now fighting the extradition to Miami, where he is facing corruption charges.
Maduro’s government exploded the sanctions as another “imperialist aggression” aimed at destroying Venezuela’s ability to meet its own needs through oil sales after four years of attacks by the Trump administration.
The U.S. Department of Commerce on Tuesday also announced measures to deter U.S. technology from using military intelligence in countries such as China, Cuba, Russia and Venezuela.
Such harsh measures have become an almost routine feature of the stubborn approach of the outgoing government in Venezuela, which has proved very popular among exiled Latin voters in Florida.
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Associated Press author Scott Smith reported this story in Caracas and AP author Joshua Goodman reported from Miami. AP writers Adriana Gomez Licon and Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed to this report.