TPS Debate Ignited by Disappearance of Deported Venezuelans in La Guaira Collapse

The fate of over a hundred Venezuelan citizens deported from the United States and reported missing after a hotel collapsed in La Guaira has intensified discussions about the future of Temporary Protection Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of migrants.

The situation gained prominence as a deportation flight arrived in Venezuela just hours before two earthquakes struck the country's north. Approximately 147 deportees were at the Sanitario Hotel in La Guaira when it collapsed following the earthquake. Reports are still emerging, but families of the deportees have indicated that at least a dozen individuals escaped on their own, while one family reported seeing a list of 32 survivors. AP, meanwhile, reported that over 100 Venezuelan deportees remained missing after the hotel's collapse.

"Everyone else was trapped, dead. I managed to get out of the rubble; for a moment, I felt like I was going to die," recounted one survivor to Univision. "It had been years since I'd been to Venezuela; I arrived on June 24th, repatriated from the U.S. My wife doesn't know about me, and my brothers found out yesterday that I arrived in Venezuela, but they don't know if I'm alive. They don't know," he added.

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Everyone else was trapped, dead. I managed to get out of the rubble; for a moment, I felt like I was going to die.

The incident has prompted calls for the U.S. to halt deportations to Venezuela during the ongoing emergency. Various organizations and families are urging a review of the immigration policies applied to those facing deportation proceedings. "In the situation we are in, where what is happening in Venezuela is a tragedy, they cannot deport more people. I mean, it's inhumane in itself," stated Janet Mejías, cousin of Daniel Alejandro Núñez Ramírez, one of the repatriated individuals found dead.

Migrant associations argue that the current conditions in Venezuela constitute an extraordinary scenario requiring protective measures. A key argument is that TPS legislation includes natural disasters as a circumstance that allows for granting this temporary immigration protection when a country cannot safely receive its citizens. Representatives of migrant associations highlighted that hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans in the United States depend on TPS or similar immigration protection schemes to work legally and support their families through remittances. "So, it's not just the migration crisis, the humanitarian crisis; there's even an economic effect," said Adelys Ferro, executive director of V, to Univision.

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In the situation we are in, where what is happening in Venezuela is a tragedy, they cannot deport more people. I mean, it's inhumane in itself.