Disney Suspends Venezuelan Workers on Supreme Court Ruling

Fabiola Zerpa

Wed, May 21, 2025, 3:41 PM 4 min read

The company sent an email to employees under Temporary Protected Status on Tuesday stating they had been placed on a 30-day unpaid leave effective on May 20. Those who are unable to provide new valid work authorization at the end of the leave will be fired, according to the internal communication viewed by Bloomberg.

A Venezuelan employee under TPS status who worked for a Disney resort was turned away from the premises when he reported to work on Tuesday, the worker said, asking not to be identified discussing private information.

“As we sort out the complexities of this situation, we have placed affected employees on leave with benefits to ensure they are not in violation of the law,” Disney said in an email. “We are committed to protecting the health, safety, and well-being of all our employees who may be navigating changing immigration policies and how they could impact them or their families.”

About 45 workers are affected, the company said.

The move by Burbank, California-based Disney, one of the largest employers in Florida, follows the Supreme Court’s decision to let the Trump administration end legal protections for Venezuelans under TPS, stripping them of the right to temporarily live and work in the US and opening many of them to the prospect of deportation.

“Disney sets the standard — other companies in our economy look toward them,” said Florida State Representative Anna Eskamani, a Democrat running for mayor of Orlando. Central Florida is home to thousands of Venezuelans, many of whom supported Donald Trump in last year’s presidential election.

“We don’t have enough workers as it is, so this is a bad situation that’s getting worse,” said Eskamani in an interview. “Plus, you can’t AI a Disney cast member who is delivering an unforgettable guest experience.”

Immigration lawyers and advocates said the Supreme Court’s Venezuela ruling likely opens the door for TPS protections for other countries to expire as well, putting more than 1 million workers across multiple US states and many industries at risk.

Laura Bloniarz, a business immigration attorney in Santa Monica, California, said many employers are now looking to reduce legal risks tied to workers with TPS or other interim protections for immigrants. She said human resources managers are likely already searching for alternative visas or programs, but in most cases, there’s little they can offer.

“It’s going to be incredibly disruptive,” Bloniarz said.

The rights of Venezuelan migrants have become a recurring Supreme Court issue. The justices on Friday extended an order that blocks the administration from using a wartime law to send about 176 alleged Venezuelan gang members to a notorious Salvadoran prison.

The latest decision lets the Department of Homeland Security cancel a TPS extension the Biden administration put in place just before leaving office. The move will affect more than half of the 600,000 Venezuelans now covered under the program. Others remain under protected status through September.

A federal judge in California is set to hold a hearing next week on the case challenging the Trump administration’s plans to end TPS for Venezuelans. US District Judge Ed Chen had previously blocked the ending of the protections, saying the government’s rationale “is entirely lacking in evidentiary support.”

The Supreme Court ruling didn’t address the merits of the original lawsuit but gave the government permission to end the program while litigation continues.

There are about 360,000 people with TPS status in Florida, 60% of whom are from Venezuela. TPS was created by Congress in 1990 to protect migrants from countries experiencing armed conflict, environmental disaster or other catastrophes. Today, nationals from 17 countries are covered under the program. Venezuela was added to the list in 2021, after a period of economic and political collapse under President Nicolas Maduro.

Marc Perrone, the recently retired president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, said an estimated 10% to 20% of the union’s roughly 240,000 members in food packaging and processing work under temporary permits.

Among the biggest struggle is the remote locations and challenging nature of many of the jobs, he said in an interview in April. If those positions go unfilled, it could lead to labor shortages that drive up food prices across the country, he said.

—With assistance from Alicia A. Caldwell, Christopher Palmeri and Anna J Kaiser.

(Updates with comment from state lawmaker Eskamani from seventh paragraph.)

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