Latest news with #legalstatus
Khaleej Times
a day ago
- Khaleej Times
UAE: Why thousands of illegal residents who ignored visa amnesty are now being deported
While the UAE's visa amnesty programme gave thousands a chance to legalise their status or exit the country without penalties last year, many overstayers chose not to act and are now paying the price. Experts and social workers told Khaleej Times that false hope, denial, and misinformation led many residents to ignore repeated warnings. Now, these overstayers face detention, blacklisting, and consequences from mounting debts to being barred from returning to the UAE. 'A lot of people had issues, but they didn't take the amnesty seriously,' said Firose Khan, operations manager at Arabian Business Centre. 'Some are still residing without a visa even after being regularised during the amnesty. The government gave them a full four-month window, until December 31, but they stayed beyond that. Now they have accumulated heavy fines.' Stay up to date with the latest news. Follow KT on WhatsApp Channels. The UAE's recent visa amnesty ran from September 1 to December 31, 2024, and allowed visa violators to either leave without incurring a re-entry ban or to regularise their stay by finding legal employment. Authorities extended the deadline by 60 days due to high demand. But for many, the amnesty came and went unnoticed or unutilised. 'Some overstayers did try to find jobs but failed. Others didn't even attempt to regularise. It became a habit for them,' said Masiuddin Mohammed, managing director of Superjet Group, which has two Amer centres under the company. 'Now they are being caught and deported. Once you are caught, you will be blacklisted and you won't be able to come back.' Mohammed said the consequences of residing illegally go far beyond deportation. 'They can't access healthcare. Many have hospital bills and no sponsor. Some have outstanding bank loans or legal cases. When amnesty was available, they had a golden opportunity to reset their lives legally.' On Tuesday, the Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Port Security (ICP) announced that over 32,000 people were apprehended between January and June 2025 for violating residency laws. Around 70 per cent have already been deported, while others are awaiting legal procedures. 'The government is always here to help. Those who go voluntarily and pay their fines may still get a discount and avoid a ban. But if you get caught, it becomes a serious legal problem,' added Mohammed. Authorities have stated that inspections are being intensified, and those who employ undocumented residents will face penalties as well. Community leaders also point to another dangerous trend — undocumented domestic workers operating illegally in homes. 'These overstayers think another amnesty will come, so they continue staying illegally,' said Abdullah Kamampalam, a social worker and a member of the Sharjah Indian Association. 'There are housemaids working off the books. And when there is a dispute, residents can't take any legal action as they don't know their real identity or status.' Kamampalam added that in some cases, theft and abuse go unreported because there is no official record of these workers. 'We urge residents to hire from trusted maid agencies and avoid undocumented workers.' The UAE has implemented four visa amnesties since 2007, the most recent being the 2024 program. Officials said that they offered all possible support, from grace periods to online and offline application options. But with the programme now closed, residency fines have been reinstated and violators face full legal consequences. 'It's a chance that many have lost and the consequences may last a lifetime,' said Mohammed.
The Independent
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Thousands of Afghans in the US face deportation after court refuses to extend their protected status
Thousands of Afghans in the U.S. are no longer protected from deportation after a federal appeals court refused to postpone the Trump administration's decision to end their legal status. A three-judge panel of the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia said in a ruling late Monday there was 'insufficient evidence to warrant the extraordinary remedy of a postponement" of the administration's decision not to extend Temporary Protected Status for people from Afghanistan and Cameroon. TPS for Afghans ended July 14, but was briefly extended by the appeals court through July 21 while it considered an emergency request for a longer postponement. The Department of Homeland Security in May said it was ending Temporary Protected Status for 11,700 people from Afghanistan in 60 days. That status — in place since 2022 — had allowed them to work and meant the government couldn't deport them. CASA, a nonprofit immigrant advocacy group, sued the administration over the TPS revocation for Afghans as well as for people from Cameroon — those expire August 4, saying the decisions were racially motivated. A federal judge allowed the lawsuit to go forward but didn't grant CASA's request to keep the protections in place while the lawsuit plays out. A phone message for CASA on Tuesday was not immediately returned. Without an extension, TPS holders face a 'devastating choice -abandoning their homes, relinquishing their employment, and uprooting their lives to return to a country where they face the threat of severe physical harm or even death, or remaining in the United States in a state of legal uncertainty while they wait for other immigration processes to play out," CASA warned in court documents. In its decision on Monday, the appeals court said CASA had made a 'plausible' legal claim against the administration, and urged the lower court to move the case forward expeditiously. It also said many of the TPS holders from the two countries may be eligible for other legal protections that remain available to them. Temporary Protected Status can be granted by the Homeland Security secretary to people who face safety concerns in their home countries because of armed conflict, environmental disaster or other conditions. They can't be deported and can work legally in the U.S., but they don't have a pathway to citizenship. The status, however, is inherently precarious because it is up to the Homeland Security secretary to renew the protections regularly — usually every 18 months. The Trump administration has pushed to remove Temporary Protected Status from people from seven countries, with Venezuela and Haiti making up the biggest chunk of the hundreds of thousands of people affected. At the time that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ended the temporary protected status for Afghans, the department wrote in the decision that the situation in their home country was getting better.
Associated Press
2 days ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
Thousands of Afghans in the US face deportation after court refuses to extend their protected status
Thousands of Afghans in the U.S. are no longer protected from deportation after a federal appeals court refused to postpone the Trump administration's decision to end their legal status. A three-judge panel of the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia said in a ruling late Monday there was 'insufficient evidence to warrant the extraordinary remedy of a postponement' of the administration's decision not to extend Temporary Protected Status for people from Afghanistan and Cameroon. TPS for Afghans ended July 14, but was briefly extended by the appeals court through July 21 while it considered an emergency request for a longer postponement. The Department of Homeland Security in May said it was ending Temporary Protected Status for 11,700 people from Afghanistan in 60 days. That status — in place since 2022 — had allowed them to work and meant the government couldn't deport them. CASA, a nonprofit immigrant advocacy group, sued the administration over the TPS revocation for Afghans as well as for people from Cameroon — those expire August 4, saying the decisions were racially motivated. A federal judge allowed the lawsuit to go forward but didn't grant CASA's request to keep the protections in place while the lawsuit plays out. A phone message for CASA on Tuesday was not immediately returned. Without an extension, TPS holders face a 'devastating choice -abandoning their homes, relinquishing their employment, and uprooting their lives to return to a country where they face the threat of severe physical harm or even death, or remaining in the United States in a state of legal uncertainty while they wait for other immigration processes to play out,' CASA warned in court documents. In its decision on Monday, the appeals court said CASA had made a 'plausible' legal claim against the administration, and urged the lower court to move the case forward expeditiously. It also said many of the TPS holders from the two countries may be eligible for other legal protections that remain available to them. Temporary Protected Status can be granted by the Homeland Security secretary to people who face safety concerns in their home countries because of armed conflict, environmental disaster or other conditions. They can't be deported and can work legally in the U.S., but they don't have a pathway to citizenship. The status, however, is inherently precarious because it is up to the Homeland Security secretary to renew the protections regularly — usually every 18 months. The Trump administration has pushed to remove Temporary Protected Status from people from seven countries, with Venezuela and Haiti making up the biggest chunk of the hundreds of thousands of people affected. At the time that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ended the temporary protected status for Afghans, the department wrote in the decision that the situation in their home country was getting better.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Here legally since 1999, thousands of immigrants have 60 days to leave
Here legally since 1999, thousands of immigrants have 60 days to leave They are nurses, mechanics, sanitation workers and executives. They've fallen in love, bought houses and raised children. They've opened restaurants and construction companies, paid taxes and contributed to Social Security, living and working legally in the United States since 1999. Now more than 50,000 Hondurans and Nicaraguans stand to abruptly lose their legal status as the Trump administration seeks to end their protections, in place since the Clinton era, under the temporary protected status program, or TPS. Amid a broader campaign to crack down on immigration, the Department of Homeland Security said that because 'conditions have improved' in Honduras and Nicaragua, it is ending the program for natives of those countries in early September. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. The decision, announced in early July, has been met with outrage from immigrant communities across the country, prompting a lawsuit by the National TPS Alliance, an advocacy group, and seven impacted individuals. The parties allege that the decision violated federal law by 'relying on a predetermined political decision' and 'racial animus,' while ignoring 'dire' local conditions in those countries. Immigration advocates hope federal courts will step in to intervene. But in the meantime, the order has left tens of thousands of people grappling with the possibility that they will be forced to leave their families and U.S.-citizen children to return to countries where they have no immediate family, no community, no jobs - places that in some cases they haven't seen in nearly three decades. 'My life has been here in the Bay Area,' said Jhony Silva, 29, a certified nursing assistant from Honduras, who is suing the Trump administration for ending the program. His parents brought him to the United States as a toddler in 1998. 'I've been doing everything the right way this whole time,' said Silva, who fears being separated from his 9-year-old child, a U.S. citizen. 'I am very, very worried.' President Bill Clinton established temporary protections for Hondurans and Nicaraguans after Hurricane Mitch devastated the Central American nations in 1998. Since then, the government has renewed the program every six to 18 months, but the Trump administration let it expire on July 5. The administration has also moved to revoke TPS for as many as 900,000 people from Haiti, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Cameroon and Nepal living in the U.S., arguing that the programs for nationals of countries facing conflict and environmental disaster was always intended to be temporary. Hondurans and Nicaraguans have had temporary protections for much longer - in some cases decades more - than immigrants from the other countries. Nearly 27 years after Hurricane Mitch, 'Honduran citizens can safely return home,' Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem said in a statement about ending that country's program. Of Nicaragua's termination, a DHS spokesperson said the program 'was never meant to last a quarter of a century.' It's not clear whether people affected will leave the U.S. voluntarily or try to lie low to avoid deportation. The average TPS holder from Honduras and Nicaragua is 48 years old and has been in the U.S. for more than 30 years, according to estimates from an immigration advocacy group. TPS holders from Honduras and Nicaragua told The Washington Post they now identify as American. Maria Elena Hernandez, 67, came to the U.S. from Nicaragua in 1996 and has worked as a cleaner at a university in Broward County, Florida, for more than 17 years. She stands to lose her job and her employer-sponsored health insurance, which covers medication for asthma and a heart condition. 'This news destroyed me,' said Hernandez, who is also suing the federal government. 'I am going to be separated from my family. I'm going to lose my medical insurance. I have a medicine that I have to take for life.' The Trump administration's termination of multiple humanitarian programs could strip 3 million immigrants of their status and work authorization, according to some immigration experts. About 72,000 Hondurans and 4,000 Nicaraguans have temporary protections, although roughly 22,100 of them have received green cards, according to the Department of Homeland Security, and therefore will be able to stay. Typically, administrations notify TPS holders six months or more before winding down TPS programs for countries that have had the designation for more than three years. But when the administration announced the terminations of the programs for Hondurans and Nicaraguans on July 7, the program had already expired two days earlier. 'The cruelty is really extraordinary,' said Emi MacLean, a senior attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California who is working on the lawsuit. 'These people have no criminal history, because you cannot maintain TPS with criminal history. They've been paying their taxes for decades. They've been paying to reregister. And the administration waiting until after the end date to announce a termination is something that has not been done before.' Jackey Baiza, now 30, was 2 when she came to Boston from Honduras with her mother. Her employer told her a day before the Fourth of July weekend that it was placing her on leave while awaiting notice as to whether the Trump administration would extend the TPS program for Honduras past its July 5 expiration. Baiza has since been asked to return to her human resources job until the program runs out in early September. 'I have no direct communication with anyone in Honduras,' Baiza said. 'Being sent back is going to a place where I have absolutely no roots. I don't know where I would go. I have no clue how to navigate the country.' She fears separation from her mother, sister and other immediate family members, all of whom have U.S. citizenship or permanent residence. Baiza's mother secured permanent legal residence through Baiza's younger sister who was born in the United States. Over the past three decades, thousands of Hondurans and Nicaraguans have used legal pathways to obtain green cards or citizenship, including through asylum applications, marriage to U.S. citizens or through U.S.-citizen children. But most immigrants with temporary protections, including Baiza, do not have obvious legal ways to remain in the country after early September. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that advocates for stricter immigration policies, called the order 'an important step in the right direction.' 'The lie of temporariness needs to end,' Krikorian said. 'It's not a great thing to uproot people who have been here for a long time, but the blame has to be on activists and politicians who have made sure TPS was perverted in this way. If the program had lasted 12 to 18 months, it would be a lot less disruptive for people.' Many of the affected Hondurans and Nicaraguans work in construction, building and grounds maintenance, and transportation - industries that face labor shortages dating back to the covid-19 pandemic. 'Some regions are going to get hit really hard, and it's going to be even harder for folks to build things or provide health care,' said Brian Turmail, a vice president at Associated General Contractors of America, a trade group that represents the construction industry. Silva, the TPS holder from Honduras in the San Francisco Bay Area, worked at a Tesla factory in the paint department throughout the covid-19 pandemic and was considered 'an essential worker,' he said. Now he works as a certified nursing assistant in the cardiac unit at Stanford Hospital, bathing, dressing and feeding sick patients. Growing up in the Bay Area, Silva participated in his church's youth group, went to the movies and played mini golf. He didn't think much about his immigration status, he said. When he graduated from high school in 2013 and tried to enlist in the U.S. Army, a recruiter told him he was not eligible. 'I've tried to be as American as possible,' Silva said. 'But I've been in his country almost 30 years, and it's still so difficult for me to get any type of permanent status.' Mardoel Hernandez, 57, came by himself to the D.C. area from Honduras at age 21 under the TPS program. He works in real estate development and advocates for permanent status for the large Central American immigrant community in the D.C. area. The end of the program 'means the end of everything,' Hernandez said. 'The end of the effort of my life.' 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Washington Post
17-07-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Here legally since 1999, thousands of immigrants have 60 days to leave
They are nurses, mechanics, sanitation workers and executives. They've fallen in love, bought houses and raised children. They've opened restaurants and construction companies, paid taxes and contributed to Social Security, living and working legally in the United States since 1999. Now more than 50,000 Hondurans and Nicaraguans stand to abruptly lose their legal status as the Trump administration seeks to end their protections, in place since the Clinton era, under the temporary protected status program, or TPS. Amid a broader campaign to crack down on immigration, the Department of Homeland Security said that because 'conditions have improved' in Honduras and Nicaragua, it is ending the program for natives of those countries in early September.
