Trump’s rollback of deportation protections prompts South Florida backlash

Miami-Dade leaders on Tuesday joined the growing backlash against the Trump administration’s decision to end deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants from Venezuela and other countries.

Why it matters: The White House’s move sparked rapid pushback from Miami’s Venezuelan population, with some arguing that President Trump used the community for political gain.

Trump’s campaign “first talked of the criminals, then it was talking about undocumented. Now, it’s talking only about immigrants, regardless of their status,” Adelys Ferro, executive director of the Venezuelan-American Caucus, said at an event Monday.

Catch up quick: Earlier this week, the White House moved to end Temporary Protected Status for an estimated 300,000-plus Venezuelans living in the country — about 60% of whom live in Florida.

TPS is a federal program that allows migrants from certain countries to legally live and work in the U.S. while the conditions in their home countries are unsafe.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote in the notice that Venezuela “no longer continues to meet the conditions” for its TPS designation, which was meant to be valid until April, Axios’ Avery Lotz reported.

The latest: Miami-Dade commissioners on Tuesday called on the president and the Department of Homeland Security to reinstate Temporary Protected Status for “law-abiding” Venezuelans, Salvadorans, Haitians, Hondurans and Nicaraguans.

What they’re saying: Doral Vice Mayor Maureen Porras on Monday said the city’s economy could fail if the residents are forced to leave, the Miami Herald reported.

Many TPS beneficiaries are business owners and contribute to the local economy, she said. If deported, “we would be left in a serious economic downturn and could potentially lead to the collapse of our local businesses.”

In a joint statement last week, U.S. Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart, Carlos Giménez and Maria Elvira Salazar acknowledged Maduro’s “repressive dictatorship” and said the country is “still not safe for many to return.”

Salazar reiterated her support of TPS for Venezuelans in a statement to Axios on Tuesday, adding that Trump is the “only force” able to remove Maduro from power.
Yes, but: Ferro and others say Republican lawmakers aren’t doing enough to protect their constituents.

Many GOP politicians have benefitted from anti-socialist rhetoric, executive director of the Miami Freedom Project Ana Sofía Peláez told Axios. “Yet, when it comes to offering settlement services or really receiving people fleeing [socialist regimes], they go mute.”

The administration targeting migrants who sought sponsors, found work and have community support “shows it was never about undocumented people or those who’ve come here in a legal way,” Peláez said.

“It’s a way to target and scapegoat immigrants and pointing to other people as the problem because you don’t have solutions.”