CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) – As time ran out, US President Donald Trump protected tens of thousands of Venezuelan migrants from deportation on Tuesday night and rewarded Venezuelan exiles who were among his most loyal supporters and who fear losing the same privilege. access to the White House during the Biden reign.
Trump signed an 18-month reprieve executive order for the removal of more than 145,000 Venezuelans who were at risk of being returned to their crisis-ridden homeland. He cited 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, and now eligible Venezuelan citizens in the US will receive much-needed temporary immigration assistance,” Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, said in a statement praising the decision.
The last-minute postponement – in stark contrast to Trump’s harsh immigration policies of the past four years – ended a busy final day in which Trump also issued a sweeping new round of financial sanctions against Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro’s alleged frontman and tightening controls to keep espionage technology out of the hands of the Venezuelan military.
But ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday, much more attention was drawn to the President-elect’s choice to become Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who showed his support for Venezuelan opposition leader Juan during his confirmation hearing to the U.S. Senate. Guaidó.
Blinken said in his initial comments on Venezuela that he would continue to recognize Guaidó as Venezuela’s interim president and said he has no illusions of a possible dialogue with Maduro, whom he called a “brutal dictator.”
Still, the veteran diplomat expressed frustration at the results of the current US approach, which has not shaken Maduro’s hold on power or led to free and fair elections. He said there is scope for sanctions refinement and better coordination with allied countries to restore democracy in the crisis-stricken South American nation.
“The difficult thing is that for all of these efforts that I support, we have clearly not gotten the results we need,” said Blinken.
The Trump administration was the first of now more than 50 countries in the world to recognize Guaidó as the president of Venezuela, shortly after the fledgling lawmaker got up two years ago to challenge Maduro’s rule. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo spoke to Guaidó by phone on Monday, expressing his “personal respect and appreciation” to the opposition leader for his “commitment to freedom,” the State Department said in a statement.
A once prosperous oil-producing nation, Venezuela has entered an economic and political crisis in recent years, sending a flood of more than 5 million residents to flee from a disruption in public services and shortages, including a lack of running water, electricity and gasoline.
Most have migrated to other parts of Latin America. But according to the Center for Migration Studies in New York, an estimated 350,000 live in the US, and about 146,000 of them have no legal status.
According to Syracuse University’s TRAC immigration database, more than 700 Venezuelans have been expelled from the US since 2018, while another 11,000 are still being deported.
For years, Venezuelans, with bipartisan support, have unsuccessfully called for 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 offers similar protections, including protections from deportation and the right to work, but still met with opposition from some Democrats who want Biden to pass legislation that provides additional safeguards.
“Our community will no longer be fooled 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 attempted to pressure Maduro, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on three individuals, fourteen companies and six ships. All are accused of helping Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA evade past US sanctions designed to deter the president from profiting from crude oil sales.
The sanctions target people and companies associated with Alex Saab, a Colombian businessman who US officials say is Maduro’s frontman responsible for everything from the import of food to the export of the country’s crude oil. Saab was arrested last year on the basis of a US order in the African nation of Cape Verde on what Maduro said was an official mission to Iran to buy supplies. He is now fighting extradition to Miami, where he is accused of corruption.
Maduro’s administration overturned the sanctions as a new act of “imperialist aggression” aimed at destroying Venezuela’s ability to provide for its own needs through oil sales after four years of attacks from the Trump administration.
The U.S. Department of Commerce also announced measures on Tuesday to prevent U.S. technology from being used by military intelligence agencies in countries like China, Cuba, Russia, and Venezuela.
Such harsh measures have become an almost routine feature of the crackdown on the outgoing government of Venezuela, which has proved popular with Latino voters in exile in Florida.
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Associated Press writer Scott Smith reported this story in Caracas and AP writer Joshua Goodman reported from Miami. AP writers Adriana Gomez Licon and Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed to this report.