Migrants live in fear as Trump threatens temporary status program

Venezuelan migrants with TPS said their lives are filled with dread and uncertainty. Others said they want to focus on living one day at a time.

CHICAGO — For the last two years, Carlos Carpio has created a life for himself in Chicago, a city he now loves. He works at a factory, rents an apartment and has made friends. He goes to church every Sunday and is a part of the community here.

But for Carpio, who is a Venezuelan immigrant in the country legally with temporary status, that stability shattered this week when Donald Trump became president, riding into office on a campaign promise to carry out the largest mass deportation the United States has ever seen.

“There’s so much fear over what Trump has been saying, and now what he’s doing,” said Carpio, 50. “Since the day Trump became president, I live in fear.”

Carpio is among the roughly 1 million people in this country who have what’s known as temporary protected status, or TPS, which gives them the right to stay in the U.S. temporarily due to civil unrest and natural disasters in their home country. His was set to expire this April, but the Biden administration earlier this month extended those protections for another 18 months for people from Ukraine, Sudan, Venezuela and El Salvador.

Carlos CarpioCourtesy Carlos CarpioThe TPS program has been used by administrations going back to George H.W. Bush. People with TPS do not have pathways to legal residency, a precursor of citizenship, without leaving the country.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/immigrants-protected-legal-status-trump-era-rcna188754

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