DUAL, Fla. - Venezuelans living in the U.S. were shocked and destroyed by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday.

It immediately stripped the temporary protected state from thousands of Venezuelans, known as the TPS. Now, the legal battle against the Trump administration's order to end the TPS is now in play. But Venezuelans living in Florida fear they might be expelled back to a country that is trapped in economic and political turmoil.

Cecilia Gonzalez Herrera came to the United States from Venezuela eight years ago as her family faced political persecution managed by authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro. "Both of my parents are very vocal about the Maduro regime. My father is a lawyer. My mom is an expert in political science."

Gonzalez was one of the plaintiffs in a order issued by the Trump administration in January, ending the TPS’s approximately 350,000 Venezuelans. A U.S. District Court judge in San Francisco suspended the order when he heard the case, and the appeals court agreed to the ruling.

TPS is a federal program that protects people from countries that are harmed by war or natural disasters from deportation and grants them a work permit. It was created in the 1990s to help the El Salvadorians who fled the El Salvador Civil War. Currently, nearly one million people from 17 countries have TPS. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Venezuelans continue to face serious humanitarian emergencies due to “a serious humanitarian emergency that the country continues to face due to the political and economic crisis under the inhumane Maduro regime.”

The Supreme Court intervened with an unsigned order and immediately stripped the TPS from a group of Venezuelans, whose identity expired in April. Adelys Ferro, executive director of the Venezuelan-American Caucus, said there could be direct consequences. "So their jobs allow TPS-related jobs to expire. So unless they have other immigration benefits, the driver's license has expired," she said.

Florida is home to the largest Venezuelan population in the United States, when people fled the regimes of authoritarian Presidents Hugo Chávez and Maduro.

Gonzalez, who lives in central Florida, is part of approximately 250,000 Venezuelans whose temporary protection status will expire in September. If she loses TPS, she applies for political asylum with her parents, and she says she and many other Venezuelans will file lawsuits against their asylum. "This … means we will be in this dilemma," she said. "We have been waiting for eight years … waiting for interviews. This is a reality for many Venezuelans who also apply for political asylum."

The Trump administration said in a court application that Venezuelans no longer need TPS because the economic and political situation there has been improved. Ferro said this wasn't true at all. She said the travel consultation released by the U.S. State Department last week confirmed this. "Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a travel warning to U.S. citizens traveling to Venezuela through his department and asked them to leave the country immediately," she said.

The consultation warns: “Do not travel to or stay in Venezuela due to the high risk of detention, terrorism, kidnapping, arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest and health infrastructure.

Trump brought Florida and Miami-Dade counties in the November election with the help of Venezuelan-Americans and other Hispanic voters.

Gonzalez said there were some remorse among Venezuelan Americans who voted for Trump, some of whom now believe his decision to act TPS was betrayal. She said it was a reminder that elections are important. "During the campaign, Trump was very open to his immigration programs, which included Venezuelans. Some of the Venezuelans who supported him looked surprised now, 'I don't know what he meant we mean, or I didn't (I think) he would come for us.' Well, he meant.

Despite its impact on Florida's sprawling Venezuelan community, the reaction to the Supreme Court order and Trump's efforts to lift TPS fell silent among Republican-elected officials in the state. Miami Congressman Maria Elvira Salazar positioned herself as a Venezuelan advocate and Trump supporter said she was “deeply disappointed” with the court’s ruling.

NPR's Jasmine Garsd contributed to the story.