Biden admin announces sweeping deportation shield for nearly 1M migrants
The Biden administration announced Friday that nearly 1 million migrants from Sudan, Ukraine, El Salvador and Venezuela — a breeding ground for members of the vicious gang Tren de Aragua — will be able to stay in the US for the next year-and-a-half, dealing a blow to President-elect Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda.
The Department of Homeland Security extended by another 18 months Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for roughly 1,900 Sudanese immigrants, 103,700 Ukrainian immigrants, 232,000 Salvadoran immigrants and 600,000 Venezuelans.
The program will now allow up to 937,600 eligible foreign nationals to remain in the US into 2026, though the precise end date varies by country. The protection had initially been scheduled to terminate later this year.
Stemming from a law signed by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, TPS provides work permits for migrants from up to 16 countries who want to stay rather in America than return to home nations marred by armed conflict, political instability or other threatening conditions.
Trump, 78, scrapped the program during his first term and expelled around 400,000 migrants before running into legal challenges — and vowed on the 2024 campaign trail to do it again if re-elected.
“We’re going to stop doing mass grants of Temporary Protected Status,” Vice President-elect JD Vance vowed in October.
The Biden administration’s move is likely to set up a contentious and lengthy court battle should Trump and Vance try to follow through on their campaign pledge.
“Trump can’t ignore what Congress wrote into law in 1990,” Cornell Law School professor Steve Yale-Loehr told the New York Times, suggesting that only the legislative branch can alter or undo the TPS program permanently.
Only those already enrolled and who remain eligible can reapply to keep working and residing in America.
Immigrants from Sudan and Ukraine “with or without lawful immigration status” must have been “continuously residing” in the US “since at least August 16, 2023,” according to the DHS announcement, which will soon be put out as a federal rule.
“Venezuelan nationals who arrived in the United States after July 31, 2023, are not eligible for TPS,” DHS also noted. “Those who do not enter through a lawful process or pathway will be subject to enforcement consequences.”
The prison gang Tren de Aragua has migrated from the South American nation to more than a dozen US states in recent years — setting up shop in California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin, a DHS memo previously reported by The Post shows.
DHS stated that migrants must submit to “rigorous national security and public safety vetting” when applying or re-registering for the program.
“If any individual is identified as posing a threat, they may be detained, removed, or referred to other federal agencies for further investigation or prosecution as appropriate,” the department noted. “Individuals are barred from TPS if they have been convicted of any felony or two misdemeanors.”
Another 309,000 Haitian immigrants included in the program already had their 18-month protection renewed last August, meaning their status will terminate in February 2026.
The conditional status currently shields migrants from Afghanistan, Cameroon, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Lebanon, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen.
“These designations are rooted in careful review and interagency collaboration to ensure those affected by environmental disasters and instability are given the protections they need while continuing to contribute meaningfully to our communities,” said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in a statement.
