The Biden administration on Friday extended protections from deportation for hundreds of thousands of people from Sudan, Ukraine and Venezuela, making it nearly impossible for President-elect Donald J. Trump to quickly remove them. benefits when he takes office.
The Temporary Protected Status Extension, as the program is called, allows immigrants to stay in the country with a work permit and protection from deportation for an additional 18 months after their current protection expires in the spring . Late last year, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken recommended that protections be expanded in a series of letters.
For decades, Democratic and Republican administrations have granted protection to citizens of countries experiencing upheaval and deemed unsafe to return to. President Biden expanded the number of people who could receive this status, as war broke out in Ukraine and instability gripped countries like Venezuela and Haiti.
“These designations are based on careful consideration and interagency collaboration to ensure that people affected by environmental disasters and instability have the protections they need while continuing to contribute meaningfully to our communities,” said Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, in a statement.
Mr. Trump has derided the program and promised to end it, at least for some countries. Immigrant advocates have urged the Biden administration to expand it to many of these countries before he takes office.
During his first term, Mr. Trump terminated the status of about 400,000 people from El Salvador and other countries, then faced legal challenges.
More than 1 million migrants from countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East were in temporary protected status in 2024, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The move makes it legally difficult for Mr. Trump to remove protections afforded to citizens of the four countries, at least until they expire in 2026.
“Because President Biden extended protection to nationals of all of these countries, President Trump will not be able to deport these people anytime soon,” said Steve Yale-Loehr, an immigration expert at Cornell Law School.
“Trump cannot ignore what Congress put into law in 1990,” he said.
About 600,000 Venezuelans who currently benefit from this protection will be allowed to renew and stay in the United States until October 2026, and about 232,000 immigrants from El Salvador will be able to do so. More than 100,000 Ukrainians will be able to stay in the United States until August 2026. Some 1,900 Sudanese will also be allowed to renew their status.
The program was signed into law by President George HW Bush to ensure that foreign citizens already in the United States could remain in the country if it is not safe for them to return to their home country due to a natural disaster, armed conflict or other upheaval. .
During the election campaign, JD Vance, the vice president-elect, called the program illegal when he criticized Haitians who had settled in his home state of Ohio and benefited from it. Haiti faces political unrest and gang violence, and some 200,000 of its citizens are protected from deportation under TPS until early 2026.
“We are going to stop granting temporary protected status en masse,” Mr. Vance said in October.
Critics have argued that temporary protections are repeatedly extended and serve de facto to allow people to stay in the country indefinitely, contrary to the intention of being a short-term solution.
While the program has become virtually permanent for many immigrants, it also highlights how many parts of the world are struggling and the failure of Congress to pass legislation to bring the U.S. immigration system into line with realities. of contemporary global migration.
Immigrants from several countries, including El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, have been able to benefit from this protection for more than two decades. Other countries, such as Ethiopia, Lebanon and Syria, have been added more recently.
Gonzalo Roa, 43, a Venezuelan beneficiary, said he was worried about the fate of the program.
“It’s great news that it’s being renewed,” said Mr. Roa, who lives in Columbus, Ohio. He works at a car dealership and runs a small restaurant with his wife.
Without this temporary status, Mr. Roa said, he would lose his job at the dealership and his two Venezuelan-born children would not be eligible for college scholarships and other benefits that require legal status.
