Statement of Solidarity with the Venezuelan People
Community Refugee & Immigration Services (CRIS) stands in solidarity with the Venezuelan people in the aftermath of the catastrophic earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24, 2026. The twin quakes, the strongest to hit the country in more than a century, have killed and injured hundreds of people, displaced families, and devastated communities across multiple states, leaving an already strained nation to confront yet another humanitarian crisis.
Among those most affected by this disaster are members of our own community. CRIS serves Venezuelan clients across central Ohio, many of whom are now desperately trying to reach family members in the affected regions to confirm their safety and well-being. Communication lines remain unreliable, infrastructure has been severely damaged, and for many of our clients the uncertainty of not knowing whether a parent, sibling, or child has survived is its own form of suffering. We hold our clients and their families in our thoughts during this agonizing period of waiting and searching for answers.
Although the epicenter of these earthquakes lies hundreds of miles from Columbus, Ohio, the impact of this disaster is felt acutely here. Columbus is home to one of the largest Venezuelan communities in the Midwest, and the grief, fear, and helplessness experienced by our neighbors in the wake of this tragedy ripple through our city. This is not a distant catastrophe to the Venezuelan families who have built their lives in central Ohio. It is a crisis affecting their parents, their siblings, and their children, and by extension, it is a crisis affecting our community as a whole.
This disaster also throws into sharp relief the untenable position in which the United States government has placed Venezuelan nationals who fled political persecution and violence and were granted Temporary Protected Status. Venezuelans who sought refuge from a collapsing state and an authoritarian government now face the termination of that protection and the prospect of forced return to a country that was already struggling under economic collapse, political repression, and a humanitarian emergency before these earthquakes struck. The destruction of homes, infrastructure, hospitals, and transportation networks has further depleted resources that were already insufficient to meet the basic needs of the Venezuelan people. To compel individuals to return to such conditions is to ask them to walk back into the very crisis from which they fled, now compounded by a natural disaster of historic scale.
CRIS calls on the Department of Homeland Security and the federal government to extend/redesignate Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan nationals in the United States. Political conditions in Venezuela have not improved, and the devastation wrought by this week's earthquakes has only deepened the country's inability to safely receive and support returning nationals. Granting TPS is not merely a matter of policy; it is a recognition of the basic humanity owed to people who have already endured so much and who now watch their home country suffer further catastrophe from afar, unable to do anything but wait for word of their loved ones.
CRIS remains committed to standing with the Venezuelan community in Columbus and across the United States, and we will continue to advocate for the protection and dignity of all those impacted by this unfolding tragedy.
Written by Vincent Wells, CRIS Attorney