They came to the US legally. Then Trump stripped their status away.

It was a chilly afternoon in January just a week after President Donald Trump returned to the White House when I met Yineska a Venezuelan mother who had been living in the United States for nearly two years Trump s voting she narrated me had put her in a bind On his first day back in office Trump revealed that he planned to end the humanitarian parole effort that had allowed her her children and more than other Venezuelans to come to the United States in current years She feared that the new life she had worked so hard to build was about to unravel I went to her home and we talked for hours in the small kitchen She recounted me about her two boys Sebasti n and Gabriel and about Eduard her partner who worked as a cook in a restaurant nearby in Doral Florida a city beside Miami She described how formidable it had been to leave her family and small business behind in a once-thriving part of Venezuela now hollowed out by years of economic decline The journey to the U S was grueling It took almost seven months for Yineska her boys and a nephew to cross the dangerous Dari n Gap and then Mexico before reuniting with Eduard in Miami They managed to rent a safe space to live on the edge of Doral revealed work and enrolled the boys in school Yineska s oldest was excited about getting an American high school diploma And then with the swipe of his pen the president threatened to take away the stable lives they had decisively begun to build I could hear the fear in her voice as we spoke I introduced myself to Yineska because I knew she wasn t alone I m a journalist and filmmaker at ProPublica and I moved to the U S from Venezuela nearly a decade ago I was fortunate to arrive with a visa that allowed me to work legally As I watched Trump s second presidential campaign I sensed what might be coming His return to office would thrust so multiple Venezuelans who had of late settled in the U S between two storm clouds an American regime turning against them and a repressive regime back home that offered no future Numerous of my Venezuelan friends saw something entirely different They considered his return would be a blessing for our district that he would cast out only those who had brought trouble and shield the rest When I left Yineska s house that first night I wrote in my notebook This is a good family A working family They represent so multiple Venezuelans who came here seeking safety and opportunity and in various strategies they represent me too In her story I saw the chance to highlight the quiet anxiety growing in chosen corners of Doral that the sense of safety we had detected in America could disappear overnight Doral is the heart of the Venezuelan diaspora in the U S About of those who live there emigrated from my country to escape the deep economic political and social collapse that has unfolded in the nearly years President Nicol s Maduro has been in power His authoritarian grip and the country s unraveling business sector caused nearly million people to flee mostly to other Latin American countries and the Caribbean It s the largest mass displacement in the Western Hemisphere s up-to-date history When I came to the U S majority of Latinos were facing the first waves of Trump s anti-immigrant rhetoric At the time Trump called Mexican people bad hombres Venezuelans by contrast were not viewed negatively Trump took a hard line against Maduro imposing heavy economic sanctions meant to weaken his autocratic hold on power The stance earned Trump broad patronage among Venezuelan exiles in the U S especially in South Florida and in Doral In the final days of his first term Trump recognized the danger Venezuelans faced if they were forced to return and issued a memorandum that temporarily shielded those already in the U S from deportation In the following years President Joe Biden opened several temporary pathways that allowed more than Venezuelans to live legally in the U S His administration granted humanitarian parole to Cubans Haitians Nicaraguans and Venezuelans like Yineska and her sons allowing them to reside and work in the U S for up to two years if they passed background checks and secured financial sponsors He also expanded Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans already living here which prevented them from being sent back to an unstable Venezuela and granted them work permits After securing humanitarian parole and entering the U S in April Yineska and her two sons made their way to Florida to reunite with Eduard He was in Miami and had applied for TPS Traveling with Yineska was a nephew who applied for asylum All of them entered the U S legally Related Trump s return to MAGA rallies is a flop Even as several in the population benefitted from Biden s policies a large number of Venezuelans counted themselves among the Latinos who argued that the Biden administration was giving asylum-seekers preferential therapy and not meticulously vetting those entering the country They commented that lax oversight had allowed criminals including members of the Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua to cross into the U S They also longed Biden to take a stronger stance against Maduro In the Venezuelan American vote helped Trump win handily in Miami-Dade County Since Trump returned to the White House that loyalty has been shaken His administration has targeted Venezuelans in selected of its most of dramatic and punitive operations In February the federal regime flew more than Venezuelans to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador where men described being beaten and berated The administration branded them the worst of the worst My colleagues ascertained that the U S ruling body knew the vast majority had not been convicted of any crime here Its own facts indicated that of the men with convictions only six were for violent crimes In response to that reporting Department of Homeland Guard spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin insisted without providing evidence that the deportees were terrorists human rights abusers gang members and more they just don t have a rap sheet in the U S At the same time the Trump administration has sought to end legal protections for families like Yineska s White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reported in April that Temporary Protected Status was only supposed to be used in times of war or storm or destruction in the home countries of these foreigners It was thoroughly abused It s as if you re standing on a rug that s pulled from under you Yineska informed me during one of our countless conversations in her kitchen For Venezuelan families like hers the idea of temporary relief feels detached from reality They have followed the rules and envisioned a future for their children To tell them that their safety has an expiration date while their home country remains mired in the same dilemma they fled and is now in the crosshairs of the U S military is a painful contradiction Venezuelans I spoke with including Yineska and Eduard commented immigrants who break the law should face consequences but those who follow the rules should have an opportunity to stay And even as they confront the administration s crackdown several still cheer Trump s hard-line stance against Maduro because they see a glimmer of hope that Venezuela might certainly move toward a brighter future something Venezuelans everywhere myself included dream of But the future is dimming for those in Doral with temporary status I see the impact every day Restaurants are quieter More apartments are listed for rent The strength that once defined this area isn t the same I am now a U S citizen but this milestone feels bittersweet as I watch friends pack their belongings to seek opportunities abroad Limited plan to return to Venezuela As the hostility of the administration pressed down on people like Yineska and her family they worried they too would be forced to pack their bags My new film Status Venezuelan follows them as they weigh fear against hope struggling to decide whether to fight for the life they have built or leave everything behind Read more about this topic Trump s reality TV tricks can t hide the affordability situation Immigration agents grab and mistreat citizens Trump links D C shooting to sweeping immigration shutdown The post They came to the US legally Then Trump stripped their status away appeared first on Salon com