There, that wasn’t so hard: Biden grants Venezuelans TPS after Trump failed to do it for so long | Editorial

Kudos to the Biden administration for on Monday deciding to offer immigration and humanitarian protection to 320,000 eligible Venezuelans now living in the United States.

It was the right thing to do — and way overdue.

Needless to say, many of those Venezuelans live in South Florida, friends, neighbors and co-workers escaping the ravages of the Hugo Chavez, and now Nicolás Maduro regimes and have made a life here.

In total, more than 5 million Venezuelans have scattered around the world. Those in the United States have been pleading for years for immigration relief.

Rightfully so, the administration decided that “due to the extraordinary and temporary conditions in Venezuela,” that Venezuelans indeed qualified under the special Temporary Protected Status, commonly known as TPS, or temporary immigration status until the upheaval in their country is resolved.

It’s ironic that the Biden administration, not President Trump’s, ended up giving Venezuelans TPS.

In 2019, Trump, largely following the advice of Miami Sen. U.S. Marco Rubio, a harsh critic of Maduro, declared a public-relations war of words about Maduro in the hopes of toppling him, pressuring him with threats following a corrupt election. There were even suggestions of military action to oust Maduro from the presidency.

The Trump administration even helped install shadow government president, Juan Guaidó. Giving Venezuelans TPS appeared to be an idea on the table. But for all of Trump’s unctuous fawning about how he was on their side, the former president didn’t come through, not even with a pre-election carrot.

At the time, Maduro was under heavy political and humanitarian pressure. Thousands of pounds of food and medicine were brought in and placed at the border between Colombia and Venezuela at a time where rumors were rampant that Venezuelans, whose economy had all but collapsed, were starving.

The hope was to set the stage for an internal revolt against the dictator. It didn’t work, and Venezuela’s militia burned the supplies.

As a parting gift, Trump in January signed an executive order delaying for 18 months the removal of 145,000 Venezuelans at risk of deportation.

But Biden, to his credit, finished the job.

As a region that is home to thousands of refugees, we are well-versed in their pain and suffering — and the peace of mind TPS can offer.

And now we assert: It’s past time to give the same peace of mind to Haitians in this country, who, like Venezuelans, are strengthening the fabric of this community — even as civil conditions deteriorate in their home country.