What is temporary protected status and who is affected by Trump's crackdown?
Millions of people live legally in the United States under various forms of temporary legal protection. Many have been targeted in the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
The latest move has been against people who have what is known as 'temporary protected status' (TPS), which grants people the right to stay in the US legally due to extraordinary circumstances in their home country such as war or environmental catastrophe.
The Trump administration has in recent weeks announced its plan to end TPS for Haitians, Venezuelans, Afghans and Cameroonians. The move may force more than 9,000 Afghan refugees to move back to the country now ruled by the Taliban. The administration also is ending the designation for roughly half a million Haitians in August.
Related: US supreme court allows Trump to revoke protected status for Venezuelans
Here's what to know about TPS and some other temporary protections for immigrants:
Temporary protected status allows people already living in the United States to stay and work legally for up to 18 months if their homelands are unsafe because of civil unrest or natural disasters.
The Biden administration dramatically expanded the designation. It covers people from more than a dozen countries, though the largest numbers come from Venezuela and Haiti.
The status does not put immigrants on a long-term path to citizenship and can be repeatedly renewed. Critics say renewal has become in effect automatic for many immigrants, no matter what is happening in their home countries. According to the American Immigration Council, ending TPS designations would lead to a significant economic loss for the US. The non-profit found that TPS households in the country earned more than $10bn in total income in 2021, and paid nearly $1.3bn in federal taxes.
On Monday, the supreme court allowed the administration to end protections that had allowed some 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants to remain in the United States.
Many Venezuelans were first granted TPS in 2021 by the Biden administration, allowing those who were already in the US to apply for protection from deportation and gain work authorization. Then, in 2023, the Biden administration issued an additional TPS designation for Venezuelans, and in January – just before Trump took office – extended those protections through October 2026.
The Trump administration officials had ordered TPS to expire for those Venezuelans in April. The supreme court's decision lifted a federal judge's ruling that had paused the administration's plans, meaning TPS holders are now at risk of losing their protections and could face deportation.
More than 500,000 people from what are sometimes called the CHNV countries – Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela – live in the US under the legal tool known as humanitarian parole, which allows people to enter the US temporarily, on the basis that they have an urgent humanitarian need like a medical emergency. This category, however, is also under threat by the Trump administration.
In late March, the Trump administration announced plans to terminate humanitarian parole for approximately 530,000 Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans and Haitians. In April, a federal judge issued a temporary order barring the elimination of the humanitarian parole program.
But last week, the administration took the issue to the supreme court, asking it to allow it to end parole for immigrants from those four countries. The emergency appeal said a lower-court order had wrongly encroached on the authority of the Department of Homeland Security.
US administrations – both Republican and Democratic – have used parole for decades for people unable to use regular immigration channels, whether because of time pressure or bad relations between their country and the US.
The case now returns to the lower courts. For the California-based federal court, the next hearing is on 29 May. For the Massachusetts case, no hearings are scheduled and attorneys are working on a briefing for the motion to dismiss filed by the government, according to WGBH, a member station of National Public Radio in Massachusetts. The appeals court hearing will be the week of 11 July.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
29 minutes ago
- CNBC
Gold retreats from near four-week peak as dollar ticks up
Gold prices fell on Tuesday, retreating from near a four-week high, as a modest rise in the dollar weighed on the metal, although uncertainty over the U.S.-China trade agreement kept investors cautious and limited the bullion's decline. Spot gold fell 0.3% to $3,369.98 an ounce, as of 0249 GMT, after hitting its highest level since May 8 earlier in the session. U.S. gold futures were steady at $3,390. The metal gained about 2.7% in the previous session, marking its strongest daily performance in more than three weeks. "Dollar recovered slightly and gold came down so it has been inversely correlated at this point of time," said Brian Lan, managing director at GoldSilver Central, Singapore. However, gold is still closely tracking developments around global trade, and while investors have slightly reduced their positions in gold it is not to the extent seen in previous instances when tensions appeared to ease, said Lan. The U.S. dollar index recovered slightly from a six-week low. U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will likely speak this week, White House said on Monday, days after Trump accused China of violating an agreement to roll back tariffs and trade restrictions. U.S. tariffs on imported steel and aluminum are scheduled to double to 50% starting on Wednesday, coinciding with the Trump administration's deadline for countries to submit their best offers in trade negotiations. The European Commission said on Monday it would make a strong case this week for the U.S. to reduce or eliminate tariffs despite Trump's decision to double import duties on steel and aluminum. Meanwhile, Russia told Ukraine at peace talks on Monday that it would only agree to end the war if Kyiv gives up big new chunks of territory and accepts limits on the size of its army, according to a memorandum reported by Russian media. Elsewhere, spot silver fell 2.1% to $34.07 an ounce, platinum was steady at $1,062.46 and palladium was up 0.1% at $990.26.
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Commerce Secretary Lutnick outlines fast pace for U.S.-India trade talks under Trump's tariff approach
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, speaking at the 2025 U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF), outlined the future of U.S.-India trade ties, urging deeper economic cooperation in line with President Trump's tariff-driven push. "Earlier countries get a better deal. That's the way it is," Lutnick remarked during his keynote address at the USISPF on Monday in Washington D.C. "Those who come in, you know, July 4th to July 9th, there's just going to be a pile. But those who are earlier—and I think India's trying hard to be one of the earlier countries, which I appreciate." The commerce secretary acknowledged the unusually rapid timeline the administration is pursuing in contrast to traditional multi-year negotiations. "These kinds of deals used to take 2 or 3 years, and we're trying to get them done in a month, which is, you know, just not the ordinary DNA of trading relationships between countries," he said. India Has Been Open To Mkaing Big Trade Progress, Kevin Hassett Says Lutnick argued that the administration is not advocating for sweeping concessions from India, but "reasonable access to the markets of India." Read On The Fox Business App "We would like our businesses to have reasonable access to the markets of India," he said. "Now, it's not going to be everything and it's not going to be everywhere. But we want to have the trade deficit reduced." "Now in exchange for that, what India is going to want is they're going to get certain key markets that they are going to want to make sure that they have special access to the American marketplace," he said. "And so that's the tradeoff." He said that ongoing talks between India and the U.S. are in a "very good place." "We've managed, I think, to be in a very, very good place, and you should expect a deal between the United States and India in the not-too-distant future, because I think we found a place that really works for both countries," he said. In a Monday evening TruthSocial post, Trump doubled down on his core trade doctrine: "If other Countries are allowed to use Tariffs against us, and we're not allowed to counter them, quickly and nimbly, with Tariffs against them, our Country doesn't have, even a small chance, of Economic survival." President Trump, India's Modi To Tackle Trade, Tariff Tensions At High-stakes Meeting In April, Trump imposed a 27% reciprocal tariff on most Indian exports to pressure India into lowering its tariffs. While strategic sectors like pharmaceuticals were exempt, industries such as textiles and machinery were affected. Click Here To Read More On Fox Business India has since avoided retaliation, opting instead to negotiate with the administration to ease the article source: Commerce Secretary Lutnick outlines fast pace for U.S.-India trade talks under Trump's tariff approach Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Black America Web
32 minutes ago
- Black America Web
Tulsa's 1st Black Mayor Proposes Reparations Plan For Descendants Of Race Massacre, But Will It Work In Trump's America?
Source: UCG / Getty Tulsa, Oklahoma's first Black mayor has proposed a reparations plan (of sorts) for the descendants of one of the most notorious and horrific race massacres in America's history, but can such a proposal come to fruition in a state that has, multiple times, denied reparations to the actual survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre? According to the Associated Press, the reparations proposal, which Mayor Monroe Nichols won't even officially call a reparations plan due to how politically polarizing the term is, wouldn't provide direct payments to citizens. Instead, Nichols characterized his proposal as one that would put the Tulsa community on the 'road to repair' by creating a private charitable trust with a goal to secure $105 million in assets, including $60 million 'to go toward improving buildings and revitalizing the city's north side,' AP reported. The mayor said his plan wouldn't require city council approval, but the city council would have to approve the transfer of any city-owned assets to the trust. 'For 104 years, the Tulsa Race Massacre has been a stain on our city's history,' Nichols said Sunday, announcing the proposal to an audience of several hundred people at the Greenwood Cultural Center, which is located in a district of North Tulsa that was decimated by the white mob in 1921. 'The massacre was hidden from history books, only to be followed by the intentional acts of redlining, a highway built to choke off economic vitality and the perpetual underinvestment of local, state and federal governments.' 'Now it's time to take the next big steps to restore,' he declared. 'The Greenwood District at its height was a center of commerce,' Nichols told AP. 'So what was lost was not just something from North Tulsa or the Black community. It actually robbed Tulsa of an economic future that would have rivaled anywhere else in the world.' Nichols, who signed an executive order earlier this year recognizing June 1 as Tulsa Race Massacre Observance Day, acknowledged that a major hurdle that could get in the way of his plan is the war on all things diversity, equity and inclusion waged by the administration of President Donald Trump. 'The fact that this lines up with a broader national conversation is a tough environment, but it doesn't change the work we have to do,' he said. Source: UCG / Getty Of course, Nichols would be right to be wary about Trump's overreaching administration medling in his city's affairs over nonsensical (and racist as hell) DEI concerns. This is, after all, the same administration that recently ended a wastewater settlement for a mostly Black Alabama town, falsely calling it 'environmental justice as viewed through a distorting, DEI lens,' simply because environmental racism was addressed in the reaching of the settlement. Even more recently, Trump expressed his intention to end a Biden-era program to expand high-speed internet to underserved communities, including rural areas, falsely claiming it provides 'woke handouts based on race,' despite the fact that poor people from rural communites could absolutely be of any race (and would also include a significant portion of his MAGA cultists). But if Nichols is worried about Trump putting the kibosh on his proposal, he should be doubly worried about what his own state government might do. Last year, the Oklahoma Supreme Court sided with lower courts in dismissing a lawsuit or reparations filed by 110-year-olds Viola Ford Fletcher and Lessie Benningfield Randle, the two remaining survivors of the massacre. Here's what I wrote about that previously: None of it is terribly surprising, of course. The same year the lawsuit seeking reparations was filed, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed into law another Republican white fragility bill prohibiting teachings in K-12 schools that include Critical Race Theory, a college-level academic framework that is not taught in K-12 schools, as well as any other race-based curriculum that causes 'discomfort, guilt, anguish or psychological distress' to (white) students. (Oklahoma wants to be Florida so bad.) Then, in 2022, Stitt called for an investigation into Tulsa Public Schools after claims that the school district violated the state's anti-CRT law, which was denounced by both the Oklahoma City Public Schools Board of Education and the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, of which Stitt had the caucasity to be a member of until he was booted from the commission for signing the law that would certainly whitewash the manner in which the Tulsa massacre could be taught—in Tulsa. So yeah — good luck to Mayor Nichols, and we hope his bare-minimum proposal becomes a reality in Tulsa, but he might be fighting an uphill battle in a state that, much like the current federal government, will always prioritize white nationalism, white supremacy and white people's eternally fragile feelings over racial justice. SEE ALSO: Op-Ed: Misogynoir Is Why Many Black Women Don't Care That Telvin Osborne's Killer Won't Be Charged Trump Admin To Settle Suit Claiming Program For 'Disadvantaged' Businesses Only Serves 'Women And Certain Minorities' SEE ALSO Tulsa's 1st Black Mayor Proposes Reparations Plan For Descendants Of Race Massacre, But Will It Work In Trump's America? was originally published on Black America Web Featured Video CLOSE
