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Adely Ferro, Venezuelan American activist, called Nov. 7 “the largest mass illegalization of a group in this country’s history.” As it was announced in early September by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, this day marked the end of the Temporary Protected Status designation for Venezuela, stripping around 250,000 Venezuelan immigrants of their legal status.

Its occurrence informs our continued realization that there has never been a “right” way to immigrate to America.

This government protection, granted to foreign-born individuals who can’t return to their countries of origin safely, has primarily been used by Venezuelan immigrants, refugees of Nicolas Maduro’s authoritarian regime, back home. Maduro’s government has proven it will maintain power through brutal force, especially at the cost of its people’s well-being. The people of Venezuela have been subject to forced disappearances, imprisonment, torture and murder for political dissent.

As a Colombian, my heart stays with my Venezuelan compatriots, not just because I feel for them as a product of immigrants myself, but because I understand the only crime the overwhelming majority are truly being charged with is existing.

Since 2021, more than 600,000 approved Venezuelans have been granted legal status by the federal government to reside, work and create a life for themselves and their families. They’ve marched from a looming shadow of violence and persecution, and have flourished into business owners, nurturing families and integral members of society. These are the persistent voices of a survival that has dug its roots into American soil.

Now, many are left with no choice but to close down their shops, walk away from leases and mortgages and return to the horrors of Maduro’s regime. Houses have been emptied and neighborhoods dismantled. Licenses, health insurance and access to routine care have been stripped away. Venezuelan parents of children who only have American citizenship are forced to leave their families.

The legitimate channels of American immigration have failed them because the system has been created to do exactly that.

This mass illegalization comes at a time when the Donald Trump administration has accelerated its racialized immigration project to purify the population. ICE’s militarized campaign of detainment and deportation has seen more than 278,000 arrests since the start of Trump’s second term, with a growing detainee population of more than 60,000.

New York state alone has been subject to 4,600 arrests in 2025, and with the third-largest TPS population in the country, the perfect conditions have been created for this to continue in our own communities. In Syracuse – specifically Onondaga, Oneida and Oswego counties – 97 arrests have taken place as of September 2025. Most recently, on Oct. 29, SUNY Upstate workers Alcibiades Lazaro Ramirez and Yannier Vazquez Hidalgo were detained during an asylum status hearing and sent to a detention center in Batavia.

For me, what’s particularly terrifying about this situation is that the Trump administration is well within its legal rights to strip Venezuela of its TPS designation. The slight improvements in the Venezuelan economy have been used to justify a return to the dangerous conditions that continue to persist. The administration has essentially equated the movement of economic capital with Venezuelan survival – which, by extension, implicates immigrant survival as a whole.

While Trump’s overreach has been clear in many areas, it’s imperative that we remind ourselves the American immigration system was built on the belief that all of the people categorized as non-white by American society are inferior and expendable.

Alongside economic justifications, Venezuela was deprived of its TPS designation because “it is contrary to the national interest to permit the Venezuelan nationals to remain temporarily in the United States.” This criteria is purposefully arbitrary, allowing the federal government to defend these decisions through language like “Guaranteeing the States Protecting Against Invasion.”

The intention behind this legal manipulation of immigration policy is one fueled by white supremacy and platformed by institutionalized racism.

It’s this reality that’s given this administration’s campaign of ethnic cleansing a clear, foundational basis. The very fact that immigration policy can be changed and enforced in parallel to the president’s personal ideology signifies that the system was designed not to integrate immigrants, but rather to restrict, contain, neutralize and expel those not of use to the government.

This deliberate agenda of domestic terrorism against Black, brown and Middle Eastern communities is working exactly as promised: it’s being sponsored by the very channels of immigration we’re urged to use to legitimize our place in American society. It’s a situation of divide and conquer; manipulation within legal boundaries to leave large immigrant populations exposed and vulnerable.

Mateo Lopez-Castro is a senior sociology, television, radio and film major. He can be reached at malopezc@syr.edu

Published on November 12, 2025 at 9:24 pm