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Introduction

Established by the U.S. Congress in 1990, temporary protected status (TPS) is a program that allows migrants whose home countries are considered unsafe the right to live and work in the United States for a temporary, but extendable, period of time. Though they are not considered lawful permanent residents or U.S. citizens, many have lived in the United States for more than twenty years. TPS holders now total more than three hundred thousand.

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The program has received bipartisan support since its creation, but it has also sparked controversy. President Donald Trump sought to end TPS for hundreds of thousands of migrants as part of his broader efforts to restrict immigration, but his attempts were delayed by court challenges. President Joe Biden promised to overhaul Trump-era immigration policies and expand protections. He has granted TPS status to two additional countries, which could more than double the number of TPS holders, and proposed legislation that would provide many of them a pathway to U.S. citizenship.

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TPS is a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program that allows migrants from designated countries to reside legally in the United States for a period of up to eighteen months, which the U.S. government can renew indefinitely. During that period, TPS holders are eligible for employment and travel authorization and are protected from deportation. The program does not include a path to permanent residency or U.S. citizenship, but TPS recipients can apply for those designations separately.

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Congress established TPS as part of the Immigration Act of 1990 to provide humanitarian relief to citizens whose countries were suffering from natural disasters, protracted unrest, or conflict. That same year, the program was offered for the first time to Salvadorans fleeing civil war. It has been broadly supported by Democrats and Republicans for more than three decades. A similar program, known as deferred enforced departure (DED), offers a temporary stay of removal for migrants facing political or civil conflict in their home countries; DED is implemented by executive order and does not have a legislative basis.

Other countries have implemented similar forms of relief. Some European states offered temporary protection to tens of thousands of refugees from the Balkans in the early 1990s, and Turkey offers temporary protection to millions of migrants who have fled Syrias civil war. Meanwhile, in 2021, the Colombian government granted ten-year temporary legal status, which allows access to employment opportunities and social services, to more than one million Venezuelan migrants fleeing political and social unrest.

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Once a country receives a TPS designation, any citizen of that country who is already physically present in the United States is eligible to apply for the program provided they meet certain requirements set by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a DHS agency. Disqualifying factors include criminal convictions in the United States and participation in terrorist activities.

The authority to grant a country TPS designation is held by the secretary of homeland security, who can extend it indefinitely if they determine that conditions in the country prevent individuals from returning home safely. Reasons for TPS designation include:

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Once a countrys designation expires, individuals return to the immigration status they held prior to receiving TPS, which for most migrants means reverting to undocumented status and facing the threat of deportation to their country of origin. They can apply for work or student visas, if eligible, though those are temporary. However, those whose spouses or adult children are citizens or legal residents could be eligible to stay in the country legally.

According to the most recent numbers released by DHS, in March 2021, approximately 320,000 migrants [PDF] from ten countries live and work in the United States under TPS. President Bidens extension for Haiti and new designations for Myanmar and Venezuela, however, mean an additional 479,600 individuals could be eligible for TPS.

Nearly 94 percent of current TPS holders are from El Salvador, Haiti, or Honduras. Hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans have been allowed to stay in the United States since devastating earthquakes rocked El Salvador in 2001. Haiti was first assigned TPS after a massive 2010 earthquake destroyed much of the country and received it again in 2021 following multiple natural disasters and violent political upheaval. Honduras and Nicaragua were given TPS after a hurricane battered the region in 1998. Since the George H.W. Bush administration, the U.S. government has granted TPS to nineteen countries, including Angola, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kuwait, Liberia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone.

Today, TPS holders are spread out across the country, with the largest populations concentrated in California, Florida, New York, and Texas. On average, TPS recipients have spent more than twenty years in the United States. But for those whose countrys TPS designation is set to expire, there are few options to remain, especially for previously undocumented residents. In June 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that being granted TPS does not override a previous unlawful entry into the country, which in practice disqualifies many migrants seeking to transition from TPS to permanent residency.

Proponents of TPS assert that it is an effective humanitarian tool for people living in the United States who are unable to safely return to their home countries. El Salvador and Honduras, for example, are two of the worlds most dangerous countries; both are plagued by high levels of violence linked to criminal gangs. Meanwhile, civil war in South Sudan rages on, while Yemen remains embroiled in a humanitarian crisis. As such, migrant rights supporters have advocated for reforming TPS to make it easier for migrants to obtain permanent residency [PDF].

Some experts also point to the economic benefits of having a larger immigrant population, as the vast majority of TPS holders are employed. In many cases, prospects for work in their home countries are grim: the World Bank put unemployment in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, at 14.5 percent in 2020. TPS holders removal could hurt the economies of U.S. cities with many TPS beneficiaries, such as Washington, DC, and Los Angeles, advocates say. A 2017 report by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center found that ending TPS for Salvadorans that year would have resulted in more than $673 million in turnover costs, as roughly 88 percent of Salvadoran TPS holders were employed. Furthermore, removing TPS holders from the United States could damage already weak economies in their home countries. Remittances, a large portion of which comes from the United States, make up roughly 23 percent of Haitis gross domestic product (GDP).

Some critics, however, argue that an originally temporary designation should not become a de facto permanent program. Many who favor limiting it say that the savings and skills TPS beneficiaries have acquired while in the United States can benefit their origin countries. Certain policymakers have maintained that ending TPS designations after a set period is consistent with the programs goal of providing a temporary safe haven for individuals rather than creating a path to permanent residency. In 2017, then-Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly said TPS is inherently temporary in nature, and beneficiaries should plan accordingly that this status may finally end.

Immigration restriction was central to Trumps campaign platform, and he took numerous steps to boost immigration enforcement and reshape asylum policy, including seeking to end TPS protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants. In late 2017, his administration terminated the TPS designations for Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan. The following January, it terminated the protections for Salvadorans, who account for more than half of all TPS holders, and in April, it terminated TPS for Nepal and Honduras. DHS said that these countries had recovered enough for migrants to safely return and gave them between twelve and eighteen months to remain in the United States and plan for their repatriation.

However, the terminations were challenged by multiple lawsuits, many of which argued that the decisions infringed on individuals constitutional rights and were racially discriminatory. In one instance, a California court temporarily barred the government from implementing terminations for El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan after several TPS holders claimed the terminations were racially motivated. In other cases, TPS holders from different countries united to file a joint case against the Trump administration. Due to a court-imposed delay [PDF], none of the administrations TPS terminations were implemented, though several of the lawsuits are still pending.

Biden promised to reverse Trumps restrictive approach to immigration. Since taking office, he has renewed TPS protections Trump tried to end and expanded the program to several additional countries. In March 2021, his administration granted TPS designations to Myanmar and Venezuela due to ongoing humanitarian crises, and in May, it announced a new eighteen-month designation for Haiti following weeks of political unrest there. DHS has also extended TPS benefits for nine other countries, including El Salvador, Nepal, and Somalia, all of which are being hit hard by COVID-19. In El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, for example, more than fourteen thousand people have so far died due to the disease. Migrant rights advocates, including many U.S. mayors and other local government leaders, have urged the administration to grant TPS to additional countries suffering from war and natural disasters, including Afghanistan, Cameroon, and Guatemala.

Bidens campaign promises included comprehensive immigration reform; he unveiled his full plan in January 2021. Among other provisions, it aims to establish an eight-year path to citizenship for nearly eleven million undocumented immigrants (including certain TPS holders who have resided in the United States since 2017), reduce visa backlogs, and deploy new technologies to increase security at the southern U.S. border.

A subset of the bill, known as the American Dream and Promise Act of 2021, would create a conditional permanent resident status for migrants, including DED and TPS holders, that would last up to ten years; it passed the House of Representatives in March 2021. A previous version passed the House in 2019 but failed to progress in the Senate. Bidens Build Back Better infrastructure plan also included a provision to provide TPS holders with a path to citizenship. However, the administration has acknowledged that none of these provisions are likely to pass the Senate in the current congressional session.

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What Is Temporary Protected Status? - Council on Foreign Relations

-> This article is part of Documenteds Glossary. We want to make it easier to understand the U.S. immigration system. If you want to know more about different visa types and immigration terms,please check our updated library here.-> To find useful information for immigrants, such as where to find free food or legal representation, check out ourMaster Resource Guide.

Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, IIRIRA, was enacted during the Clinton administration with the objective to strengthen immigration laws by increasing enforcement resources, expanding the definition of who was considered deportable, and instituting harsher penalties for illegal immigration.

The nearly 300-page IIRIRA detailed significant changes to Title 8 of the United States Code, which governs immigration and nationality. Scholars and immigration attorneys consider it along with the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which was passed the same year to be the catalyst behind the modern system of immigration enforcement.

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Both acts made deportation much more common and laid the groundwork for harsh interior enforcement that would characterize Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency created seven years later after the attacks of 9/11.

IIRIRA also made it much more difficult for people living in the country illegally to obtain legal status by requiring them to prove their deportation would cause substantial hardship. In addition, it put in place 3 and 10 year bans on re-entry for individuals who had remained in the United States illegally for more than six months or more than one year, respectively.

The effects of increasing border security led to a surge of apprehensions. The measures also affected legal immigrants in the country. Longtime legal permanent residents became, suddenly, vulnerable to deportation if they had committed crimes, some of which were non-violent.

Also read: What Happens if You Overstay Your Tourist Visa

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IIRIRA: Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, explained - Documented - Documented NY

On Wednesday, former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will lie in state at the Capitol Rotunda, joining a long and growing list once limited to former presidents and military leaders.

Shortly after Reids death, legislators from both sides of the aisle sung the Nevada Democrats praises. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said that Reid would be in his prayers, that he was a good man who fought hard for his causes, and that he will be missed. Chuck Schumer, who holds Reids old job in the Senate, said that his friend always looked out for people.

Schumers praise for his old friend and mentor is more insightful than he might have imagined. Reid once championed meaningful immigration reform that would have benefited Americans, especially blue-collar workers. Eventually, Reid drifted over to the extreme left, and supported illegal immigrant amnesties as well as more employment-based visas.

In 1993, about six years after Nevada voters promoted him from the House of Representative to the Senate, Reid introduced a far-reaching comprehensive immigration reform bill that Democrats, especially former President Barack Obama and Schumer, would prefer to forget about. As per a press release issued from his office, Reid outlined what he called the first and only comprehensive immigration reform bill in Congress, the Immigration Stabilization Act of 1993.

The first item of business the press release addressed was to overhaul the nations immigration laws and begin a massive scale-down of immigrants allowed into the country from approximately 800,000 to 300,000. Legal immigration reduction groups have been lobbying for similar reductions for years. The current 1 million-plus annual lawful permanent residents is an unsustainable level since chain migration eventually converts the initial 1 million immigrants into about 3 million. A Princeton University study found that, on average, each immigrant petitions slightly more than three family members to join him in the U.S.

Another long-sought change reductionists have favored for decades is ending birthright citizenship. Reid wanted it clarified that a U.S.-born child to an alien mother who is not a lawful resident should not be considered a U.S. citizen. If ISA were approved, Reid said the incentive for pregnant alien women to enter illegally, often at risk to mother and child, for the purpose of acquiring citizenship for the child and to then receive federal benefits would be eliminated.

Other Reid recommendations have a familiar ring: a crack down Reids wording on illegal immigration, then an estimated 3.3 million, ending asylum fraud along with the phony claims that allow unqualified aliens to enter, excluding aliens who cannot financially support themselves without assistance, and beefing up border security.

For a period, too short as things turned out, Reid was committed to rational immigration.

In his 1994 Los Angeles Times op-ed, Reid scorned his colleagues for their failure to reduce legal immigration, and he urged lawmakers to reject unfounded racism charges to act quickly to pass ISA. He concluded that the real injustice to future Americans would be to do nothing [to reduce immigration].

Reid was a spot-on prognosticator. Congress did nothing, and in the three decades that have passed, the illegal immigrant population has quadrupled from 3 million to nearly 12 million. The border that Reid wanted to reinforce is a horror show as officials predict that 2 million aliens will cross illegally this year.

In his official statement about Reids death, President Joe Biden praised him for his power to do right for the people. Reid was, Biden concluded, a giant.

Had Reid stuck to his 1993 immigration wish list, he would have done right for the people, and could truly be remembered as a giant.

Instead, Reid dropped the ball and platitudes being heaped on him aside was just another politician whose views shifted with the Capitol Hill winds.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

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Joe Guzzardi: The late Harry Reid once championed pro-American immigration reform - Today's News-Herald

No other member of Congress oversees more territory along the southwest border than Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales. Spanning roughly 800 miles along the U.S.-Mexico border, Texas' 23rd District has oftentimes been ground zero for the continued migration surge.

Over the past two months alone, border authorities have encountered nearly 65,000 migrants at the Big Bend and Del Rio border sectors which run across Gonzales' district. This figure stands as just a fraction of the over 1.85 million migrants who have been encountered at the southwest border since Gonzales took office.

Gonzales, a former Navy officer of Mexican American descent, was elected to serve the politically moderate, majority Hispanic district in 2020 following the retirement of former Congressman Will Hurd. During his campaign, he centered border security and stability among his top issues. He told Newsweek that realizing this goal requires immigration reform.

"(Immigration reform) is a topic that is in my face nonstop, and it's just it's the right thing to do," Gonzales told Newsweek."This country has been just going back and forth for too long, and the problem is that it's a political winner for both parties, to be able to throw it around, but the loser is the American public."

Over the past year, Gonzales' district has paid the price for America's often criticized border enforcement and immigration strategy. He said that people living in his largely rural district, a number of whom live directly on the border, have seen their property damaged and face fear over the uncertainty surrounding who may be crossing through their land.

While Gonzales knocks the Biden administration's early efforts to undo measures taken by the Trump administration and believes it could do more to ensure security, he said addressing the heart of the issues starts in Congress.

Gonzales sees much of current actions being taken to address the migration surge as "Band-Aids" that do little to prevent migration surges from arising again in the future. With polices around entry often changing with the presidential administration, Gonzales said that criminal smuggling organizations often review the latest changes and take advantage of news surrounding the policy shifts to convince desperate migrants to pay them for passage to the United States.

"They're the ones that really kind of spin up the migrants and feed them information," Gonzales added.

News outlets including Reuters, The New York Times, and The Texas Tribune all report that inconsistent enforcement and confusion around immigration policies have played a role in pushing desperate people who already face gang violence, economic hardships and food insecurity to make the decision to come to the border.

The lack of clarity offers illicit smuggling businesses fuel to make their potential clients compelling promises which ultimately results in these individuals ending up in situations where they are violating the country's laws. Gonzales said that Congress must introduce a policy that does not encourage illegal immigration and instead offers feasible, clear pathways for qualifying people to pursue their "American Dream."

"It's been difficult to find people that even want to have the conversation. It seems like everyone is in their corners, but I'll keep pushing," Gonzales said. "Ultimately, this is about national security."

Gonzales fears that with the continued shifts in immigration enforcement comes the risk of a potential terrorist threat that could be triggered by a bad actor gaining entry into the country.

As more people continue to make the trip north, border resources will continue to be stretched and some individuals may slip through the cracks. Over the past year already, Border authorities encountered at least three individualstwo from Yemen and one from Saudi Arabiawho have been labeled as potential terrorists.

While addressing this problem and staving off the migrant flow by providing international clarity on who can enter the country stands as something to be tackled in the long term, Gonzales offered a number of recommendations on what the administration can do to address the issue in the short term.

The congressman asked that the Biden administration not fire any border agents who face potential terminations this month as a result of the federal vaccine mandate. He introduced the Border Agents Staying Employed (BASE) Act in mid-December aimed to provide vaccination alternatives. Gonzales also suggested to Newsweek that the administration move to expand the agency's technological repertoire by adding more drones that can support agents as they monitor remote areas of the border.

"These simple things I think would go a long way in helping kind of just shore up or insulate a Border Patrol that is beyond a breaking point," Gonzales said. "When a terrorist a threat occurs, they don't target Republicans or Democrats, they're just trying to kill Americans. Everyone should be rooting for a secure border."

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Rep. Tony Gonzales Urges Congress to Pass Immigration Reform: 'It's the Right Thing to Do' - Newsweek

The number of Americas immigrants, or foreign-born residents, has reached a historic high of46.2 million. That figure is the largest number of immigrants everrecordedin any government survey or U.S. census going back to 1850.

That record-breaking number is more than four times as large as the9.6 millionimmigrants in the country 50 years ago. Since then, Americas population has increased by 60 percent.

Todays U.S. foreign-born residents represent 14.2 percent of the nations population. That percentage is three times as large as the 1970 proportion of4.7percent, which is Americas historic low, and slightly less than the countrys record high of14.8percent in 1890.

Also, for the first time in Americas history, the demographic contribution of immigration has surpassed natural increase, which is simply the difference between births and deaths.

Between July 2020 to July 2021, Americas population grew by0.1 percent, which is thelowest rateof growth since the nations founding. The country gained392,665additional people, increasing thepopulation to331.8 million.

Of the countrys demographic increase during that 12-month period, immigration accounted for 62 percent of the gain and natural increase 38 percent. In addition to the COVID-19 pandemic increasing deaths, the pandemic contributed to fewer births compared to recent years.

The immigrants countries of origin have changed markedly since the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act. Whereas in 1960 about84 percentof U.S. immigrants were from European nations and Canada, today those countries account for 13 percent of the foreign-born.

Todays immigrant population is made up of Mexicans and other Latin Americans, each group at around25 percent. Immigrants from Asia are at 28 percent, with China and India each a 6 percent and the Philippines at 4 percent. The remaining 9 percent come from other regions.

Americas immigrants are more settled in the country than in the past. In 2018, for example, nearlythree-quartersof U.S. immigrants had resided in the country for more than a decade.

The large majority, more than 75 percent, of the U.S. foreign-born population are lawful residents in the country. The remainder, nearly25 percent,are estimated to be unauthorized migrants.

Following the 1986 Immigration Reform and ControlAct,also known as the Reagan Amnesty, which legalized most unauthorized immigrants who arrived prior to Jan. 1, 1982, their numbers have grown steadily. From 1990 to 2007, for example, the number of unauthorized immigrants more thantripled, increasing from 3.5 million to a record high of 12.2 million in 2007.

Attempts for a Reagan-typeamnestyfor today's unauthorized immigrants have been proposed by the Biden administration. However, immigration reform has repeatedly stalled in Congress and theprospectsof providing a pathway to citizenship any time soon do not appear promising.

Given the lack of reform, some towns, the latest being New York City, are allowingnon-citizensand Dreamers to vote in municipal elections. Somestates, including Alabama, Arizona, Colorado and Florida, have adopted rules preempting attempts to adopt similar voting laws.

Estimatesof the unauthorized immigrant population vary depending on the methodology, the time period and the data sources. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that11.4 millionunauthorized migrants were living in the country in 2018, amounting to 3.4 percent of the population.

The number ofunauthorized migrants attempting to enter the U.S has recently reached the highest level in more than 20 years. In May, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported that it caught180,034unauthorized migrants, which is the largest monthly total since 2000. In November the CBP encountered173,620illegal crossers at the southern border, a 140 percent increase compared to November 2020.

In the fiscal year 2021, nearly2 millionunauthorized migrants came in contact with immigration enforcement, with approximately88 percentof them resulting in expulsions. In addition, increasing numbers of unauthorized migrants are coming fromcountriesoutside Central America, including Cuba, Ecuador, Haiti, Venezuela and some African nations.

TheCensus Bureauexpects the number of immigrants living in America to continue increasing over the coming decades, reaching about54 millionby 2030 and 65 million by 2050. Those projections represent about15 percentof the population in 2030 and 17 percent in 2050, with both proportions greater than the countrys historic high levels around the late 19th to the early 20th century.

International migration is expected to exceed natural increase as the principaldriverof population growth in the coming decades. With the aging of Americas overall population and baby boomers reaching the oldest ages, deaths are expected to increase more rapidly than births. Consequently, by mid-century immigration is expected to be contributingtwiceas many people to Americas population as natural increase.

However, as has been witnessed during past years, immigration is sensitive to economic, social and political conditions as well as public health circumstances. Those conditions and circumstances are difficult to anticipate and may change abruptly, as has been witnessed with the coronavirus pandemic.

The projections prepared by the Census Bureau rely on historical trends and offer several assumptions about future immigration based largely on recent levels. In addition to the main series projection, alternativescenariosof high, low and zero immigration levels are also prepared.

In the coming decades, thepopulation projectionsin the main series assume an annual net immigration level of 1.1 million migrants. At that level, Americas population is expected to be about405 millionin 2060, an increase of 22 percent over todays population. However, if immigration were to stop, Americas population in 2060 is projected to be320 million, or nearly 4 percent smaller than it is today.

In sum, the key message is immigration will most likely continue to be a major, if not the predominant determinant of U.S. population growth. Consequently, Americas immigration can be expected to continue reaching historic highs.

JosephChamieis a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book,"Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters."

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For the foreseeable future, immigration will fuel US population growth | TheHill - The Hill