Less than 10 days before leaving office, the Biden administration on Friday announced an extension of a program known as Temporary Protected Status for nearly 1 million immigrants from El Salvador, Sudan, Ukraine and Venezuela.
The Department of Homeland Security said the decision follows an evaluation of the humanitarian crises in those countries, which have been marked by political instability, economic collapse, widespread violence, and lack of access to basic necessities such as food, medicine and health care.
The extension of TPS will benefit approximately 234,000 Salvadorans, 1,900 Sudanese, 104,000 Ukrainians, and 600,000 Venezuelans, according to DHS. TPS for El Salvador is extended until March 2026, while the designations for Sudan, Ukraine, and Venezuela will continue through Oct. 2026.
While this move is favorable for the immigrants it will benefit, they are still at risk if the new homeland security secretary that President-elect Trump appoints revokes their status. Under immigration law, the secretary’s decision to designate or not designate a country for Temporary Protected Status is not subject to judicial review.
In the lead-up to the election, Trump promised to revoke the legal status of TPS recipients. “Absolutely, I’d revoke it,” Trump told NewsNation in Oct. 2024, emphasizing his intention to deport immigrants with TPS to their home countries.
Vice President-elect J.D. Vance is also on the same page as Trump in regards to immigrants with TPS. Vance criticized Haitian TPS holders and others as “illegal aliens” receiving “amnesty” through what he calls the Biden administration’s “magic government wand.” At a campaign event in Oct. 2024, he also pledged to end mass grants of Temporary Protected Status. During his first term, Trump did attempt to terminate TPS protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants, but legal challenges blocked these efforts.
Advocates and immigration activists welcomed the news of the TPS extension, though the administration did not heed their call to make new arrivals eligible for the program. Officials are hesitant to grant TPS to new arrivals, according to two sources familiar with the internal discussions who spoke to CBS News, revealing that the reluctance is partly due to concerns that such a move could be seen as a politically motivated attempt to undermine the incoming administration.
This summary was featured in Documented’s Early Arrival newsletter. You can subscribe to receive it in your inbox three times per week here.
