Venezuelans under TPS can apply for refugee status: Kristi Noem

Noman Sabit: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Sunday that Venezuelans in the U.S. who were previously under temporary protective status (TPS) can apply for asylum.

“Every individual that was under TPS has the opportunity to apply for refugee status and that evaluation will go forward,” Noem told host Gillian Turner on “Fox News Sunday.”

Noem ended TPS earlier this year for roughly 600,000 Venezuelan migrants who received protected status from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the Biden administration.

After the U.S. captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, early Saturday morning, Venezuelan migrants in South Florida took to the streets to celebrate.

The long-term future for their country, though, is unclear. President Trump told reporters Saturday that the U.S. “will run [Venezuela] until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” adding that American oil companies will “fix” the South American nation’s petroleum infrastructure.

Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world.

Meanwhile, Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, said Saturday in a televised address to Venezuelans “there is only one president in Venezuela and his name is Nicolás Maduro Moros.”

Trump, who said Saturday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Rodríguez after the U.S. took Maduro into custody, told The Atlantic’s Michael Scherer on Sunday that if the vice president “doesn’t do what’s right,” she will “pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.”

Rubio told host Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the U.S. must first address the flow of drugs, gangs and sanctioned oil from Venezuela before entrusting the country to new leadership.

“We don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years,” Trump noted Saturday.

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BP/SM