Immigration Backlogs Leave Venezuelans Without Good Work Options

Mounting backlogs in government processing of applications for humanitarian immigration programs are leaving thousands of foreign nationals without the ability to work to support themselves and their families while they wait.

The lengthy processing times—which can take up to a year or more—threaten to undercut the Biden administration’s expanded use of such programs, including Temporary Protected Status.

TPS allows foreign nationals who can’t return to their home countries because of conflict or natural disaster to live and work in the US for 18-month periods. The program serves as a complement to the country’s slower-moving, yet permanent, asylum process.

The Department ...