Mayorkas Extends and Expands Somali Amnesty-Lite
Cites drought, flooding, and desert locusts to award new work permits
By Robert Law on July 23, 2021
The Biden administration has once again utilized Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to dole out work permits to illegal aliens, this time for those from Somalia. TPS is supposed to be a temporary form of relief that allows certain aliens to remain in the United States for a period of time if the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary determines that conditions in the home country temporarily prevent the country’s nationals from returning safely. But, "There's nothing as permanent as a temporary immigration status."
Under the TPS statute (section 244 of the Immigration and Nationality Act), once the DHS secretary designates a country for TPS, beneficiaries — often illegal aliens who had no intention of voluntarily returning home — are generally not removable, are permitted to work in the country, and may receive permission to travel abroad. This form of amnesty-lite has been abused by multiple administrations to extend and expand protections for reasons that bear little to no relation to the conditions that supported the initial designation. Obstructionist district judges even prevented the Trump administration from terminating TPS designations despite the statute clearly saying such decisions are not subject to judicial review.
The DHS secretary may designate a foreign country for TPS due to one or more of the following circumstances: (1) ongoing armed conflict; (2) an environmental disaster; or (3) extraordinary and temporary conditions. The mere existence of any of these factors is not enough for an initial designation or an extension. Instead, the law requires that the ongoing armed conflict “would pose a serious threat to [the] personal safety” of the country’s nationals if returned; the environmental disaster requires that the home country is “unable, temporarily, to handle adequately the return”; and the extraordinary and temporary conditions must prevent the alien “from returning to the state in safety”. This aspect of the statute is routinely ignored and has led to absurd reasons cited to justify a TPS extension. A prime example is when the Obama administration cited coffee rust to extend Honduras’s TPS designation, which was based on the damage caused by Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
https://cis.org/Law/Mayorkas-Extends-and-Expands-Somali-AmnestyLite
