Maryland-based immigrant rights group CASA is suing the Department of Homeland Security and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem over the decision to revoke temporary protected status for Venezuelan immigrants.
Filed in conjunction with Make the Road New York, another immigrant rights group, the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland calls the DHS action “unconstitutional” and “discriminatory” under the fifth amendment.
The DHS decision stands to impact approximately 600,000 Venezuelan migrants and their families living in the United States.
"The purpose of those restrictions is to provide for the predictability of a fixed period of time and an orderly transition for those who are lawfully present in the United States with TPS," CASA and MRNY argue.
It is not the sole lawsuit of this type, a similar suit was brought forth in California earlier this week.
Temporary protected status (TPS) gives migrants from certain countries, often those suffering intense humanitarian crises, the opportunity to live and work legally in the United States. CASA and MRNY say this is the case in Venezuela where healthcare and sanitation systems have collapsed.
“Under Nicolas Maduro’s regime, human rights protections deteriorated, leaving citizens vulnerable to the threat of violence from both Maduro’s security forces and criminal gangs,” the groups wrote in the suit.
That position has been shared by DHS officials in the recent past. In January, President Joe Biden extended the TPS for Venezuela through an executive order for an additional 18 months.
That was vacated by Noem and DHS officials on January 28th.
A.E. is a Maryland pizza delivery driver who lives and works in the country legally under his temporary protected status. A.E. is a CASA member represented by the lawsuit, and the group withheld his full name for his safety. In Venezuela he was a union member at an electrical company and a city councilman in a political opposition party, which endangered his life under current President Nicolas Maduro’s regime.
“In Venezuela, having different ideals can cost you everything. It can become a death sentence. My unwavering beliefs are of liberty, freedom and democracy,” he said through a translator during a Friday press conference.
“The safety of my family and myself was threatened,” said A.E.
The DHS revoked TPS for Haitian migrants on Thursday, placing many of those migrant potentially at risk for deportation beginning in August. During the presidential election, Vice President J.D. Vance spread a false narrative that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating pets.
In the lawsuit, CASA and MRNY are seeking reinstatement of temporary protected status for Venezuelans. They are represented by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs (WLC) and Cleary Gottlieb.
