The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) announced that it will extend the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for migrant citizens who come from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, Sudan and Nepal until June 2024. The extension will be valid from December 31, 2022.
According to official information, the Joe Biden administration will benefit some 391,000 migrants, including 4,250 Nicaraguans, who have lived in the United States for several years under the Temporary Protected Status program. In addition, this action implies that citizens covered by this regulation will automatically obtain a work permit.
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“During the TPS designation period, beneficiaries are eligible to remain in the United States. They cannot be removed and are authorized to work as long as they continue to have TPS. They can also request and receive a travel authorization at their discretion, ”refers the document published by the Federal Register.
Data from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) highlights that at the end of 2021, 241,699 Salvadorans, 76,737 Hondurans, 14,556 Nepalese and 4,250 Nicaraguans were registered in the TPS program. This program protects from deportation and grants work permits to migrants from countries facing armed conflict, environmental disasters and other “extraordinary” emergencies.
This measure was approved by the US Congress in 1990 in the Immigration Act. Since then, countries such as El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua have received extensions of the benefit. It was not until 2017, by decision of former US President Donald Trump, that TPS ended for some countries.
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Legislators and pro-immigrant organizations insisted to the US government at the beginning of 2022 that the extension be increased for migrant citizens of Nicaragua who have left the country due to the economic and human rights situation they currently face.
“We strongly urge you to protect tens of thousands of Nicaraguan men, women, and children who are at great risk to their safety, if they return to Nicaragua at this time,” the legislators expressed in a letter sent in July of this year and which was endorsed by community organizations like the Florida Immigrant Coalition and the American Friends Service Committee.
