Last week, President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security extended temporary deportation protections to roughly one million U.S. immigrants.
It was a sweeping move that brings a measure of stability to immigrant households nationwide ahead of an imminent crackdown promised by President-elect Donald Trump, who is just days away from returning to the White House.
The deportation protections are part of a program dubbed Temporary Protected Status, which also allows recipients to access work permits.
There are over 40,000 immigrants with TPS in Georgia — the fifth largest such population across all states, according to a December report from the Congressional Research Service.
The outgoing Biden administration’s decision to extend TPS, which applies to people already in the U.S. from Sudan, Ukraine, El Salvador and Venezuela, is expected to impact thousands of people who live in Georgia. Their legal status in the country, which was set to lapse this spring, will now remain in effect for an additional 18 months after they reregister for the program.
“This is good. I’m glad Biden did it. It at least provides some relief to people who were obviously already nervous, right?” said Jennifer Hamamoto, an immigration attorney and managing director of immigration at the Latin American Association, a nonprofit headquartered on Buford Highway.
“We need to celebrate the victories that we do get.”
Credit: Photo Courtesy of Gigi Pedraza
Credit: Photo Courtesy of Gigi Pedraza
Gigi Pedraza is the executive director of the Latino Community Fund Georgia. She said she welcomed Biden’s decision to extend TPS, but wishes it would have happened earlier to give impacted immigrant communities more peace of mind ahead of what could be a tumultuous Trump second term.
“I think that it is unfortunate that it has come so late, creating so much uncertainty and pain in families that didn’t know what their future would look like,” Pedraza said. “But, you know, better later than never. These are families that have been working and contributing, and they’re basically being given permission to continue doing that.
“It’s just common sense.”
TPS does not provide recipients a path to permanent legal residency or citizenship. But it buys otherwise these immigrants time to seek permanent immigration avenues.
Biden’s TPS extension only applies to individuals who are already protected under the program. It does not make more people eligible for TPS, falling short of requests from advocates who want people from countries such as Guatemala and Ecuador to be shielded from deportation.
“I talked to people in the last couple days; they’re relieved,” said Charles Kuck, a longtime Atlanta-area immigration attorney. “They’re like: ‘At least I have 18 more months here in the United States to get my life together.’
“And TPS is a jumping-off point for a lot of people,” he continued. “You can marry a U.S. citizen and get a green card. An employer can sponsor you for a green card if you have TPS. So there are options that come with TPS that have allowed people to regularize their status.”
Congress created TPS in 1990 to allow foreign nationals already in the U.S. to legally stay if it is unsafe for them to return to their homeland because of natural disasters, humanitarian crises or civil strife.
Although TPS protections are meant to be temporary, frequent renewals by federal authorities can prevent them from ever lapsing, something conservative critics of the program tend to highlight. Immigrants from several Central American countries have been eligible for TPS for more than two decades.
In its announcement last week, the Biden administration highlighted the hazardous conditions around the world that in its view makes the extension needed.
In Ukraine, “the largest military action in Europe since World War II … has caused a humanitarian crisis, with significant numbers of individuals fleeing and damage to civilian infrastructure that has left many without electricity or access to medical services,” a DHS statement reads. “These conditions prevent Ukrainian nationals and habitual residents from safely returning.”
There are currently 103,700 eligible Ukrainian TPS beneficiaries who will be able to reregister under terms of the extension, along with 232,000 Salvadorans and approximately 600,000 Venezuelans.
According to DHS, protections are warranted because of “environmental disasters” in El Salvador and a “humanitarian emergency” in Venezuela tied to the “inhumane” regime of strongman Nicolás Maduro, who cemented his authoritarian rule last week when he began a third term a president with no proof of having won the country’s most recent election.
Even as they celebrate Biden’s decision to extend TPS, advocates are readying for challenges to come quickly under Trump.
On the 2024 campaign trail, Vice President-elect JD Vance called the TPS program illegal. During Trump’s first term, he moved to phase out the humanitarian protection for immigrants from countries including Haiti, El Salvador and Sudan — though that effort was held up in court.
In Kuck’s view, the new Trump administration, which has pledged to pursue mass deportations, will be more effective this time around.
“I would suspect if they wanted to roll TPS back, they’ll be able to do it,” he said.
Federal regulations would allow the TPS extensions to be terminated early, although that has never been done in the past.
If TPS was eliminated, everyone registered for the program would immediately become unlawful residents.
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