Venezuelan immigrants in Minnesota are scrambling to find ways to stay in the United States after the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration’s move to strip legal protections for roughly 350,000 people nationwide.
The high court’s May 19 decision superseded a March ruling issued by a federal judge that paused Trump administration plans to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelans instituted under the Biden administration.
Ahilan Arulanantham, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the federal case and co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law, called the move the most significant single action removing the immigration status of a group in modern American history.
It’s being felt in Minnesota. At a Saturday gathering of a Venezuelan softball league in Fridley, many attendees said they fear losing legal status in the United States.
Manuel Soriano came to Minnesota from Venezuela three and a half years ago, settling in Osseo with his wife and two children. The family had TPS status and has applied for asylum. They fear returning to Venezuela, but don’t know how their legal process will unfold.
“Right now, we are all afraid,” Soriano said.
‘We can’t leave, we can’t stay’
The Sorianos like living in Minnesota. Their kids are in high school. Like many Venezuelans in the metro area, they enjoy the sense of community at the Saturday softball tournaments.
Families flock to the softball tournaments, stomping on the bleachers and cheering with every run scored. Baseball is the national sport in Venezuela, and the softball league puts that passion on full display. Food vendors sell Venezuelan street fare and kids play in the park surrounding the diamonds.
Zonia Celis fled Venezuela for Minnesota in April 2022. She had TPS status before the Supreme Court’s ruling and has applied for asylum. At the softball tournaments, she runs a food stand, La Sazon D’Cary, selling sandwiches made with patacones — smashed plantains — and other flavors of home.
The changes in her immigration status are alarming, Celis said. She has two brothers and several nieces and nephews who now live in Minnesota, and the Supreme Court decision puts them in limbo. Returning to Venezuela would be dangerous, she said.
“We can’t leave, we can’t stay. It’s not easy,” Celis said.
Andrew Deziel, co-founder of Casa de Venezuela Minnesota, a state chapter of a national organization, urged people at the softball tournament to sign a petition asking Congress to protect Venezuelans. One bill introduced by a bipartisan group of Florida lawmakers, the Venezuelan Adjustment Act, would provide a path for legal permanent residency for many Venezuelans.
Conditions in Venezuela have deteriorated rapidly in the past decade, with about a quarter of the population fleeing poverty, crime and political oppression. The United States has imposed sanctions on Venezuela since 2005, and increased those sanctions under the first Trump administration. The United States views President Nicolas Maduro’s regime as illegitimate and has criticized the country’s treatment of Maduro’s political opposition.
Millions of Venezuelans have fled their home country, with most walking across the Colombian border. Many have settled in neighboring South American countries, while others have continued to the United States, often traveling by a mixture of bus and foot through Central America and Mexico. An estimated 3,000 Venezuelans live in Minnesota, according to 2023 data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Supreme Court ruling affects people living under the 2023 TPS designation. About 250,000 Venezuelans are still living in the United States under a 2021 TPS designation, according to the National TPS Alliance, an advocacy nonprofit.
Many U.S. groups are working with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, Deziel said. The Casa de Venezuela Minnesota chapter has sought to talk with Minnesota Republican Congressman Tom Emmer about the issue, he said. But the Trump administration’s TPS cuts and threats to end humanitarian parole, another program many Venezuelans qualify for, are a huge setback.
“It’s a pretty devastating situation,” Deziel said.
‘They left for a reason’
The Rev. Melissa Gonzalez, a Lutheran minister, leads a bilingual congregation in the south metro with many Venezuelan parishioners. Many who were on TPS have applied for asylum or are in the process of doing so, she said.
Gonzalez has worked with other churches to help 38 Venezuelans apply for humanitarian parole, but has now been told that program is no longer available.
“We have a lot of families who will continue to be separated because of the decisions,” she said.
The U.S. immigration system is often cruel and capricious, Gonzalez said. One family in her congregation had a relative in Venezuela who had been previously approved to come to the United States, but the Trump administration rescinded that approval. Venezuelans and others from Latin America are fleeing real distress, she said.
“They left for a reason,” Gonzalez said.
Seeking asylum
The only avenue now open to many Venezuelans is asylum. But immigration court is backed up, and those applying today likely won’t have a court hearing until 2027. Those who apply for asylum are allowed to stay in the United States while the application is processed.
Alfonso Rojas came to the United States as a teenager in February 2023, turned himself in at the border, and was paroled in the country. Now 18, Rojas appeared before Immigration Judge Amy Zaske in April. Rojas had applied for TPS, but Zaske told him the program was no longer open. She said he is eligible to apply for asylum. Zaske set Rojas’s next hearing for February 2026 and said he should turn in an asylum application beforehand.
Zaske presided over a hearing of about 30 people, mostly from Ecuador, when Rojas had his court date. She said that those who apply for asylum aren’t likely to have a hearing until 2027.
Rojas told Sahan Journal he wants to stay in Minnesota, where there are opportunities and he doesn’t fear being robbed like he did at home. He works as a day laborer and sends what money he can to his parents in Venezuela. The longer he can stay in the United States, he said, the more he can help them. He’s nervous about going home because he’s heard the Venezuelan government treats people who went to the United States poorly.
He thought he did the right thing by applying for TPS, but said following the changes in immigration policy is difficult.
“It’s confusing,” Rojas said.
