As I pray that immigration reform will be included in the reconciliation process, including a pathway to citizenship which is supported by a 3-to-1 bipartisan margin in battleground states including Florida, I look to my senators, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, to finally show some leadership.
You could act today to cosponsor the SECURE Act and provide a path to citizenship for immigrants with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in Florida, including Venezuelans, Haitians and others here contributing to our communities and our economy.
That includes me.
I never thought I would leave Venezuela in the 30 years I served as a Catholic priest there before 2017, when I started receiving death threats for my vocal opposition to the corrupt, tyrannical, socialist President Nicolas Maduro.
– Original Credit: Courtesy photo
By that time, I had already been beaten unconscious by the armed thugs of Venezuela’s Cuba-backed and Castro-controlled dictatorship. I had been placed on trial nine times, incarcerated and tortured. I first sought safety in Mexico. But, shortly after I arrived there, my host was gunned down in the street.
Fearing for my life, I crossed the border from Mexico into the United States. After a month in an immigrant detention center in Brownsville, Texas, authorities confirmed my identity and concluded that returning to my home country would put my life at risk.
I was granted an asylum visa while I await a decision on my application for TPS, which has been delayed due to the COVID pandemic.
There are approximately 320,000 immigrants now living in the U.S. with TPS from 10 countries deemed too dangerous for their safe return, and that number is expected to grow as over 320,000 Venezuelans and 95,000 Haitians are now eligible for TPS.
I am just one of a diaspora of 60,000 Venezuelans living with TPS in Florida today, all of us fleeing tyranny in the only country we had ever known. There is no going back. Through sheer force, Maduro still holds power in Venezuela today.
While my status allows me a work permit, I am also forced to live my senior years in an unrelenting state of anxiety, never knowing if or when I could be forced to flee what has become another homeland for me.
I am grateful to have put down roots in St. Cloud and to be part of Florida’s thriving Venezuelan community, which makes vital contributions to our economy, earning a combined household income of more than $880 million and contributing over $89.4 million in state and local taxes annually.
Our senators know about mine and my compatriots’ struggles — and contributions — all too well. Sen. Rubio is, after all, the son of Cuban immigrants. He knows first-hand the grit and determination it takes to leave your homeland and make it America. In a move of bipartisan goodwill, Sen. Scott has publicly applauded the Biden Administration for granting TPS to Venezuelans.
So, it’s heartbreaking to watch both Florida’s senators sit on the sidelines, refusing to help shape bipartisan immigration solutions and thereby playing politics with our lives.
A recent poll by the American Business Immigration Coalition (ABIC) found that not even Trump voters support deportation — only 17 percent are in favor — yet that is the fate TPS holders face unless senators, including Rubio and Scott, pass a pathway to citizenship.
They should know that Florida’s Venezuelans are paying attention.
Another recent Florida International University poll funded by ABIC found that half of Florida’s voters of Venezuelan descent would no longer support any politician who obstructs a pathway for TPS holders, and half said their support for President Biden increased after his promise of a path to permanent status for TPS holders.
Rubio responded to news about the public poll by professing his hope that we Venezuelans will one day return home, a slap in the face to my community which has already established deep roots here.
As my friend WIlliam Diaz asked him, when Cuba’s regime is gone, will he go back to Cuba to be a governor of a province there?
So I know I speak for my Venezuelan brothers and sisters when I implore Rubio and Scott to cosponsor the SECURE Act and pass sensible immigration reforms that keep our economy strong, our families together and our lives intact. Our community is watching.
José De Jesús Palmar Morales lives in St. Cloud.
