MARCH 29, 2024
How Temporary Protected Status has expanded under the Biden administration
BY MOHAMAD MOSLIMANI
Since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, his administration has greatly expanded the number of immigrants who are eligible for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) – a designation that gives them time-limited permission to live and work in the United States and avoid potential deportation.
The federal government offers TPS to qualifying immigrants who live in the U.S. and come from selected nations that are deemed unsafe to return to because of war, natural disasters or other crises.
How we did this
A table showing that over 1 million immigrants in the U.S. are either eligible for or receiving Temporary Protected Status. About 240,000 immigrants from Venezuela are currently receiving TPS.
Nearly 1.2 million of the roughly 21.6 million noncitizen immigrants living in the U.S. are either receiving or eligible for TPS. These immigrants come from 16 countries: Afghanistan, Cameroon, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen.
Federal immigration officials may grant TPS for up to 18 months based on conditions in immigrants’ home countries, and they may repeatedly extend this eligibility if dangerous conditions in those countries persist.
The Biden administration cited dangerous conditions in Cameroon, Myanmar, Syria and Venezuela when it recently expanded TPS protections to immigrants from those countries. The Federal Register provides detailed information about each of these countries’ designations.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/29/how-temporary-protected-status-has-expanded-under-the-biden-administration/
