The outgoing administration of President Joe Biden has announced an extension of Temporary Protected Status, which is granted to immigrants from countries the United States deems unsafe to return.
Friday’s announcement affects people from four specific countries: El Salvador, Sudan, Venezuela and Ukraine.
In any case, the designation of “Temporary Protected Status” (TPS) has been extended for 18 months due to the ongoing threat of war, humanitarian crises and natural disasters.
But the extension only applies to people already protected by the program, falling short of calls from immigration advocates to expand eligibility.
Still, the announcement is likely to be seen as a farewell to the new administration of Donald Trump, who has promised to crack down on immigration when he takes office on January 20.
An estimated 1,900 Sudanese, 103,700 Ukrainians, 232,000 Salvadorans and 600,000 Venezuelans are eligible for the TPS extension.
However, you must re-enroll in the program to take advantage of the 18-month extension.
Trump has targeted the TPS program since his first term in office from 2017 to 2021.
Under this administration, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it would phase out Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from countries such as El Salvador, Haiti and Sudan.
A federal court in 2020 ultimately backed Trump’s authority to end the program, raising fears that immigrants in the country could eventually be legally deported.
When Biden succeeded Trump in 2021, he changed course by increasing the number of people eligible for temporary protected status and adding countries like Venezuela and Afghanistan to the list.
Human rights groups welcomed the changes and called the protections urgently needed.
Still, groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) pushed Biden to go further in protecting immigrants fleeing human rights abuses, war and other disasters.
For example, in a 2022 statement, Emi Maclean, staff attorney for the ACLU’s Northern California branch, pointed out that short-term extensions of TPS ultimately provide little security for immigrants in the long term.
“Today, TPS holders still lack permanent residency and do not have all the civil rights and political equality they deserve,” Maclean said.
“Most members of this community have lived in this country for decades.”
Others pointed out that Biden has tightened other legal immigration channels, such as the right to seek asylum. The Biden administration has also not extended TPS protections to other foreigners in dire need, including Palestinians, which has led to accusations of a double standard.
In addition, Biden continued several tough immigration policies inherited from Trump, including the controversial Title 42 measure, which allowed the U.S. to quickly expel migrants and asylum seekers at the southern border in the name of public safety.
This measure was challenged in court several times due to a violation of asylum law. Title 42 ultimately expired when the emergency declaration for the COVID-19 pandemic ended in May 2023.
Still, the Pew Research Center estimates that under Biden, nearly 1.2 million noncitizen immigrants, out of a total of 21.6 million in the U.S., were eligible for TPS.
However, immigration became a topic of heated debate during the 2024 presidential campaign, with Trump suggesting “mass deportations” if elected to a second term.
When asked by News Nation in October whether he would revoke TPS status for Haitian immigrants, Trump responded with misinformation about the community in Springfield, Ohio, where he had previously accused Haitians of eating pets.
“You have to remove people. We cannot destroy our country,” Trump told News Nation.
“It doesn’t work. It can’t work. It has nothing to do with Haiti or anything else. It doesn’t work. “You have to expel people and bring them back to their own country,” he added. “In my opinion it is not legal. This is not legal for anyone.”
Ultimately, Trump won the 2024 race, and he has signaled that he wants to push forward on his immigration crackdown in his first 100 days in office.
However, in Friday’s announcement, Biden’s administration emphasized the dire conditions that made the TPS extensions necessary.
Returning immigrants to Ukraine, for example, would expose them to the violence of Russia’s ongoing invasion, which “has resulted in high civilian casualties and reports of war crimes,” the Department of Homeland Security statement said.
In El Salvador, natural disasters such as severe storms and earthquakes have created dangerous living conditions, it said. And in Venezuela, “political and economic crises” under the “inhumane” government of Nicolas Maduro made return unsafe.
Then there was Sudan, where the US earlier this week accused paramilitary forces of waging a campaign of genocide.
“Militias have targeted fleeing civilians, murdered innocent people fleeing the conflict, and denied remaining civilians access to life-saving supplies,” Homeland Security wrote.
“These conditions currently prevent Sudanese nationals and ordinarily resident residents from safely returning.”
