GOP Rep. Pleads With Trump To Reverse Decision To Deport Venezuelans TPS Recipients

Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar pleaded with President Donald Trump to not deport Venezuelan Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders after the Supreme Court again allowed the administration to more forward with their removal.

The high court determined on Friday that the administration could move forward with the decision to strip hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans from the protection, making them move vulnerable to deportation.

In this context, Salazar said that while she applauds the Trump administration for going against authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro, "the end of TPS has created deep anxiety for thousands of Venezuelan families in Miami, hardworking taxpaying members of our community, now living in fear of being forced back to Maduro's narco-dictatorship."

"We must not send a single law-abiding Venezuelan back until conditions change, and right now they are only getting worse," she added.

Hundreds of Venezuelan TPS recipients had already been detained by immigration enforcement agents even before the Supreme Court riling, according to a report by the Miami Herald.

Salazar is among the Latino Republicans from Florida who continue to be criticized in their state over parts of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.

Keep Them Honest, a dark-money organization, set up billboards across Florida to draw attention to the matter throughout the year.

"Deporting good immigrants back to dictatorships is cruel," reads the ad, which could also be seen on the Miami Herald's website. The signs single out Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart, Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez, as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Some of the billboards and digital ads are in their districts.

Chris Willis, a spokesman for the group, told the Miami Herald that the officials "have the ability to make demands for what we know traditionally these members of Congress have said they stood for," which is "to defend the rights of those who have fled dictatorships and have come to this country seeking the American dream."