US extends legal protection for Venezuelans for 18 months

By JULIE WATSON
Associated Press

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who fled their country’s humanitarian crisis and are in the United States under temporary legal protection will be allowed to remain for another 18 months. The Biden administration announced Monday that an estimated 343,000 Venezuelans already in the United States and who were given Temporary Protect Status, or TPS in March of 2021, would be eligible. Immigrants from more than a dozen countries have become eligible under the program created in 1990 for people from nations stricken by civil strife or natural disasters. Short-term reprieves are often extended in increments of up to 18 months, leading many to describe it as anything but temporary.