Behind Biden’s TPS ruling

President Joe Biden’s order to give Temporary Protective Status (TPS) to Venezuelan migrants living in the United States is no humanitarian act. It might seem so, since TPS would allow these Venezuelans to work legally in the U.S. if they can find work. But there’s little humanity in Biden’s maneuver. 

Biden’s TPS offer follows the same U.S. strategy aimed at regime change that the George Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump administrations executed before Biden. The goal is U.S. domination and plunder of Venezuela.

So far, all these administrations’ actions have failed to overturn Venezuela’s progressive government. While failing, Washington has inflicted cruel suffering on the Venezuelan people.

Venezuela’s economy has depended for most of the last century on its ability to export crude oil. But the U.S. has imposed economic sanctions that amount to a blockade, including of food and medicine. The sanctions have forced many Venezuelans to migrate, first to other South American countries, especially Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, and later to the United States.

According to reports from U.S. immigration authorities, almost a half million Venezuelans are living in the United States, having entered since March of 2021. These are the people affected by the TPS. More Venezuelans are trying to enter, having left other South American countries, where economic conditions have recently deteriorated for them. 

Up to now, the Venezuelan government has been able to resist Washington’s attempts at regime change. The White House’s most humiliating failure occurred under Trump, whose administration promoted a coup led by Juan Guaidó starting early in 2019. Although he had the public backing of the U.S. and the big European Union imperialist powers, and also including the then reactionary Colombian regime next door, Guaidó flopped miserably. 

In the end even the pro-U.S. Venezuelan parties rejected Guaidó. Washington altered its tactics and doubled the sanctions in intensity. 

As human beings, as workers and farmers, Venezuelans are no more or less deserving of the right to migrate and work than others. But Biden offered them TPS because the strategists directing U.S. foreign policy aim to weaken the Caracas government. If they don’t offer this to migrants from Guatemala or Ecuador, for example, it’s because the U.S. already dominates the regimes in those countries, regimes which are corrupt and brutal.

Biden may appear to be a kindly elder, but look closer. His offer of TPS is meant not to improve the lives of Venezuelans but to lure more Venezuelans to leave their home country. It’s aimed to make life more precarious in Venezuela and to overthrow the elected government of Nicolás Maduro. 

The U.S. followed a similar policy of luring migrants from the socialist countries during the existence of the Soviet Union. Washington has done the same for over 60 years in its attempt to strangle socialist Cuba.

Working-class parties should take a clear position. There are no borders in the workers’ struggles! We defend the rights of all migrants to live, work and travel. And we oppose the brutal sanctions imposed by Washington on more than a third of the world. End all U.S. sanctions!