Schumer Floor Remarks Calling On The Senate To Pass Temporary Protective Status For Venezuelans

Washington, D.C.— Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding the urgent need to support Venezuelan immigrants by expanding Temporary Protective Status. Below are his remarks which can also be viewed here:

Later today, my friends Senators Durbin, Menendez, and Van Hollen will come to the floor to try again to secure temporary protected status for Venezuelans seeking refuge here in the United States.

There are roughly 200,000 eligible Venezuelans in the United States who are now at risk of being sent back to a failed and dangerous nation, rife with political repression and human suffering. A nation that, under Maduro’s regime, constitutes the single biggest humanitarian crisis in our hemisphere today.

Despite having all the authority that he would need to solve this problem on his own, President Trump won’t grant temporary protected status and his enablers in the Senate have repeatedly blocked passage of House legislation that would provide it.

So we are going to try once again to get this passed. Democrats stand with the people of Venezuela. Later today, my Republican colleagues will need to decide if they want to restore the moral leadership of the United States and support the protection of Venezuelans fleeing violence and despair, or leave them all in limbo, facing deportation to a humanitarian disaster.

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