Cortez Masto Urges Court to Uphold Temporary Protected Status for Venezuela

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) joined 126 members of Congress in urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to uphold Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuela, a status that protects immigrants fleeing President Nicolas Maduro's regime of violence and instability.

The lawmakers submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case of National TPS Alliance et al. v. Noem, urging the reversal of the Trump Administration's baseless decision to terminate the TPS designation for Venezuela. First granted in 2021, TPS has provided approximately 600,000 Venezuelans in the U.S. refuge from economic upheaval and human rights abuses in their home country and authorization to live and work legally in the U.S.

A District Court ruled in September that the Trump Administration's decision to vacate and terminate Venezuela's TPS designation was unlawful and implemented a nationwide injunction as the case proceeded through the appeals process. The Supreme Court later allowed the Department of Homeland Security to continue stripping Venezuelans of their protections to remain lawfully in the U.S. while the case is fully considered in the Ninth Circuit.

The lawmakers stressed that the Executive Branch must determine humanitarian protections such as TPS according to set criteria as opposed to political preferences. "The Northern District of California properly determined that the plain text of the TPS statute does not support the Secretary's argument that her actions are unreviewable. Nor does it support the Secretary's actions with respect to Venezuelan TPS. Instead, the Executive Branch's interpretation of the TPS statute essentially rewrites the statute to claim a power that Congress did not delegate to the Executive Branch," they wrote in the brief's introduction.

They also pointed to Congress' tradition of bipartisan support for TPS and for protecting law-abiding individuals from being sent into harm's way, writing, "the Secretary's actions not only violate the TPS statute but also contradict the bipartisan opposition to terminating Venezuela TPS. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have long supported temporary protected status for Venezuelans who fled dangerous conditions in their country - conditions that persist today."

The full text of the brief can be found here.

Senator Cortez Masto is an attorney with decades of legal experience. She was admitted to the Nevada bar in 1990 and served two terms as Nevada Attorney General. As senator, she has consistently fought for the rights of hardworking immigrant communities, including TPS and DACA recipients. She called on both the Biden and Trump administrations to protect DACA recipients, TPS holders and other immigrants. She has worked to pass meaningful immigration reform that balances critical border security measures with a path to citizenship for Dreamers, TPS holders, and essential workers.

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