By Lulit Shewan

Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is a legal status that was created by Congress in 1990 to provide work permits and protection from deportation to migrants from designated countries where conditions like war and natural disasters can make it unsafe for people to return. While this program was initially intended to be temporary because it does not provide a pathway to permanent legal residence (green card) or citizenship, over a million people have relied on the program and built enduring ties to the United States. TPS has allowed them to better adjust to life in the U.S., earn money to support themselves and their families, and contribute to their communities.

The Trump Administration and its Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are following through on their plans to come after TPS and strip hundreds of thousands of migrants of their legal status. Discontinuing TPS status will immediately render beneficiaries undocumented, deprived of legal standing, and exposed to the threat of detention and deportation. Curtailing TPS is yet another instance of the Trump Administration demonizing a humanitarian program to satisfy its anti-immigrant agenda and create new deportation pathways for those who have established their lives here.

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The author would like to thank CLASP colleagues Lorena Roque and Suma Setty for their data extraction of TPS-eligible individuals by state, as well as Sivan Sherriffe for the design of this paper. The author would also like to thank former Hunger Fellow Emily Rodriguez for her thoughtful contributions to the writing and data analysis in this paper.