Venezuelans in Utah collect aid, press for pause on deportations after deadly quakes

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Venezuelans in Utah led efforts over the weekend to gather aid for those impacted by two deadly earthquakes in Venezuela.
Now the community is part of a national call to pause deportations of those facing removal to Venezuela given the devastation in the country.
Two powerful earthquakes last week killed an estimated 1,500 and damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings.

SALT LAKE CITY — The deadly earthquakes last week that devastated Venezuela are having after-effects in Utah.

Some in the community here lost loved ones due to the disaster and Venezuelans all along the Wasatch Front took part in a drive over the weekend to collect aid for those in need, leading to tons of donations.

"We have a lot of people donating. It was so many. We never really thought it'd be that many," said Mayra Molina, who leads the Venezuelan Alliance of Utah, an advocacy group for the Venezuelan community that assisted with the collection effort.

Amid worries about Venezuelans in the United States facing removal, she also said the Alliance is part of a new national initiative to press U.S. lawmakers to put a pause on deportations to the country.

"Obviously, with the Venezuelan scenario, everything changed," Molina said. Federal officials have the authority to grant temporary protected status to immigrants from countries contending with natural disasters, she said, and given the devastation of last week's earthquakes, "we qualify 100%."

The Alliance launched an online petition drive to muster support for the effort and Molina has sought meetings with Utah's congressional delegation to Washington, D.C., to discuss the issue. "Deporting or forcing Venezuelans to return to a nation whose infrastructure has just collapsed — and whose primary airport is physically destroyed — would violate the core spirit of American compassion and create an active safety crisis for those involved," reads the petition.

Last Wednesday's magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes have killed around 1,500 people, according to estimates so far, and damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings, Reuters reported. Efforts continue to pull survivors from rubble and many worry the death toll could rise.

In response, members of the Venezuelan community and their backers held several donation drives on Saturday, paralleling efforts across the country, resulting in the collection of 5,000 boxes of goods. The local donation drive is over, Molina said, and those involved are now working out the logistics of shipping the donated items to Florida for shipment to Venezuela.

Clothing, medical supplies, non-prescription medicine, food and items for babies were among the items donated by the public. She suggested that those still wanting to donate give to national and international organizations.

"People were gathering all over — Utah County, Salt Lake County, even in Ogden," Molina said. Panas en Utah, a social media organization geared to Utah's Latino community, helped spearhead the initiative.

'We don't know what to tell them'

The temblors in Venezuela impacted the families of many in Utah. Molina said her sister-in-law's family was forced from their apartment in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, due to damage the structure sustained, forcing them to move in with other family members in Venezuela.

"They're OK. They're safe. They live in Caracas, but they lost their apartment," she said. "The building didn't come down, but it's really bad. They're not able to live there anymore."

A family member of another Alliance leader died in the earthquake, she said, while family members of others are missing.

In the meantime, family members of Venezuelans detained by U.S. immigration authorities have been calling Alliance members seeking advice, worried about them being deported to Venezuela in its current chaotic condition. "We don't know what to tell them, just to wait," she said.

The petition the Alliance is promoting says Venezuela "is facing a humanitarian emergency of unprecedented proportions that renders safe return entirely impossible." It suggests granting of temporary protected status, or TPS, to Venezuelans in the United States, allowing them to remain.

The Immigration Act of 1990 "mandates that TPS be granted when a foreign state is temporarily unable to handle the return of its nationals due to an environmental disaster or earthquake," the petition reads.

Existing TPS programming has been the target of President Donald Trump and his moves to crack down on illegal immigration. His administration last year ended earlier TPS initiatives geared to Venezuelans and the U.S. Supreme Court last week issued a ruling allowing Trump to end TPS protections for Syrians and Haitians.

Alternatively, the petition proposes that the Trump administration OK a "deferred enforced departure" initiative, or DED, for Venezuelans. "Utilizing DED now would bypass lengthy procedural delays, allowing the administration to swiftly pause removals and grant temporary work authorization on vital humanitarian grounds," the petition reads.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.