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Biden admin extends immigration protections to Venezuelan migrants, including thousands in NYC
By
Jon Campbell
Published Sep 20, 2023
Modified Sep 20, 2023
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Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images
By
Jon Campbell
Published Sep 20, 2023
Modified Sep 20, 2023
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An estimated 472,000 Venezuelan migrants — including tens of thousands in New York City — will receive protection from deportation and be eligible to receive work permits under a new action announced Wednesday evening by the Biden administration.
The Department of Homeland Security will extend and re-designate Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan migrants who have been living continuously in United States as of July 31, 2023, a move that will allow them to legally work without having to wait the typical 180 days required to those who applied for asylum.
The move follows months of pleas from Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams, who have repeatedly asked President Joe Biden to expand the designation to allow more Venezuelans to legally work in the United States.
By allowing more migrants to legally work, city and state officials are hopeful that more will be able to find their own housing and move out of the city’s overwhelmed system of temporary and permanent homeless shelters.
“There’s more work to do as we address this crisis, but the state of New York is prepared to immediately begin the process of signing people up for work authorization and getting them into jobs so they can become self-sufficient,” Hochul said in a statement late Wednesday following the federal announcement.
Adams said he spoke with the White House on Wednesday night to express his gratitude for the move.
“More than 116,000 asylum seekers have come to New York City since last spring in search of the American Dream," Adams said in a statement. "Our administration 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."
As of the end of July, about 40% of the more than 100,000 migrants arriving in New York City had come from Venezuela since the spring of 2022, according to City Hall.
Adams held a news conference in April to formally call on Biden to extend TPS protections, saying that to “deny people the ability to work legally sets them up for failure.”
Hochul discussed the influx of migrant arrivals with Biden late Tuesday at a United Nations reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Earlier Wednesday, she declined to get into specifics of their conversation, but reiterated her support for expanding TPS protections for Venezuelans.
“Our slogan is: Let them work,” Hochul told reporters. “Work authorization is critically important, and an area we've been talking about for a long time is, for example, Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans.”
The federal expansion will apply primarily to those Venezuelan migrants who arrived in the U.S. between March 2021 and July 2023.
Previously, the federal TPS protections had only applied to those Venezuelans who had been in the U.S. continuously as of March 2021, leaving out hundreds of thousands of migrants who since fled the South American country ruled by an authoritarian regime.
Additional reporting by Elizabeth Kim.
This story has been updated with comment from Mayor Eric Adams.
Tagged
new york state
new york city
Asylum Seekers
housing
Kathy Hochul
Politics
eric adams
Jon Campbell
Jon Campbell covers the New York State Capitol for WNYC and Gothamist. Prior to that, he covered the Capitol for more than a decade for the USA TODAY Network. He has twice earned the Walter T. Brown Memorial Award, an honor given annually by the Legislative Correspondents Association alumni for outstanding state government coverage. Jon grew up in the Buffalo area and graduated from the University at Albany. Got a tip? Email Jon at [email protected] or Signal at JonCampbellNY.90.
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