Activists march toward the White House on Feb. 23 in a call for Congress and the Biden administration to pass legislation granting immigrants with Temporary Protected Status a path to citizenship.
Activists march toward the White Business firm on Feb. 23 in a call for Congress and the Biden administration to pass legislation granting immigrants with Temporary Protected Status a path to citizenship. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants who do not want to return to dangerous conditions in their dwelling house countries have received extensions of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, a federal program that gives time-limited permission for some immigrants from certain countries to work and alive in the United States.

Since President Joe Biden took part in January 2021, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the program, has added two nations (Myanmar – likewise chosen Burma – and Venezuela) to the listing of those whose immigrants may exist eligible to apply for TPS. The section also extended benefits into 2022 and across for eligible immigrants from nine other nations: El salvador, Republic of haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. In addition, the Biden administration expanded eligibility for immigrants from Haiti based on contempo turmoil. By contrast, the Trump administration had sought to end TPS for near all beneficiaries, just was blocked from doing then past a serial of lawsuits.

After taking office in January 2021, the Biden administration designated immigrants from Venezuela and Myanmar (also called Burma) equally eligible for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and extended deadlines for protection from deportation to immigrants from nine other countries. In add-on, the Biden assistants and Democrats in Congress have proposed a pathway to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of immigrants with TPS as role of broader clearing legislation. This represents a change from the Trump assistants, which sought to end the TPS programme for most beneficiaries.

To look at who could exist affected, we analyzed information about the TPS program published on the Section of Homeland Security website and Federal Annals announcements about TPS benefits, also equally a White House fact sheet, a fact sheet from Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., and the text of a neb proposed by congressional Democrats. We also relied on information from the Congressional Enquiry Service.

In this analysis, TPS beneficiary numbers for most countries are taken from Section of Homeland Security statistics provided to the Congressional Enquiry Service, which exclude recipients who also have Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR) status or U.Due south. citizenship. Some may have left the U.S. or died. For immigrants from Myanmar and Venezuela, estimates of the number of people eligible were included in Federal Register notices designating those nations as covered past TPS.

A table showing that at least 700,000 immigrants from 12 different nations are covered by Temporary Protected Status

Overall, information technology is estimated that at least 700,000 immigrants from 12 countries currently take or are eligible to have a reprieve from deportation under TPS, which covers those who come up from designated nations where it may not be prophylactic to return because of war, hurricanes, earthquakes or other extraordinary atmospheric condition. The estimated total is based on those currently registered, in addition to those estimated to be eligible from Myanmar, Venezuela and nether the expanded designation for Haiti.

Federal immigration officials may grant TPS status to immigrants for upward to 18 months initially based on conditions in their home countries and may repeatedly extend eligibility if dangerous conditions persist.

Biden and congressional Democrats take proposed granting citizenship to TPS recipients who meet certain conditions. Subsequently taking function, Biden asked Congress to laissez passer legislation that would permit TPS recipients who meet certain atmospheric condition to apply immediately for greenish cards that let them go lawful permanent residents. TPS currently does not make people automatically eligible for permanent residence or U.S. citizenship.

The legislation proposed by Biden and congressional Democrats would allow TPS holders to apply for citizenship iii years subsequently receiving a dark-green carte, which is two years earlier than usual for light-green-carte du jour holders. Citizenship would be granted if they laissez passer additional background checks and see the usual naturalization weather condition of knowledge of English and U.S. civics.

The TPS provisions are a office of broader proposed legislation that would grant like benefits to some unauthorized immigrant farmworkers and recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) plan. Other U.S. unauthorized immigrants, after applying for temporary legal status, would be required to wait five years to apply for a light-green carte du jour that would make them eligible for citizenship later.

In designating Venezuelans as eligible for TPS, the Biden administration said the country "is currently facing a severe humanitarian emergency" with impacts on its economy, human rights, medical care, offense, and admission to food and bones services. The Federal Register notice, which estimated 323,000 people would exist eligible to apply, also cited charges of election fraud on behalf of President Nicolás Maduro, who has led the land since 2013. Since Jan 2021, Venezuelans also had been eligible for deportation relief and work authorization under a separate federal program called Deferred Enforced Departure (read more than in text box "Deferred Enforced Departure also offers protection from displacement").

Deferred Enforced Departure also offers protection from deportation

Another form of temporary relief from displacement, chosen Deferred Enforced Departure (DED), is granted at the president's discretion, rather than equally a consequence of an administrative procedure in the Department of Homeland Security. It usually follows catastrophes in immigrants' home countries similar to those that take triggered TPS. Currently, certain immigrants from Liberia, Venezuela and Hong Kong are eligible for this benefit and are likewise allowed to apply for authorization to work. Liberian immigrants with DED have relief until June xxx, 2022, and those from Venezuela have it until July twenty, 2022. Immigrants from Hong Kong must have lived in the U.S. since Aug. 5, 2021, and are eligible for xviii months after that date.

The designation of Myanmar applies to immigrants who have lived in the U.Southward. since March 11, 2021, or earlier. About one,600 people are estimated to be eligible, co-ordinate to a Federal Register observe. In announcing the TPS designation, U.Southward. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas cited the impact of the Feb. 1 military coup, including "standing violence, pervasive arbitrary detentions, the use of lethal violence confronting peaceful protesters, and intimidation of the people of Burma."

Every bit of March 2021, most TPS beneficiaries had lived in the U.S. for two decades or more. Those from Honduras and Nicaragua were designated eligible based on impairment from Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and must have been living in the country since Dec. thirty of that year. The current protection for immigrants from El salvador applies to those who have lived in the U.S. since Feb. xiii, 2001, following a series of earthquakes that killed more than a thousand people and inflicted widespread harm.

The original TPS designation for Haiti was based on a dissentious earthquake in Jan 2010. Immigrants from there are eligible if they entered the U.S. past early 2011. The Biden administration added a new designation roofing Haitians who lived in the U.S. since July 29, 2021, based on a continuing political crisis, violence, man rights abuses and other dangerous conditions that were worsened by the COVID-nineteen pandemic.

Immigrants with TPS live in all 50 states and the Commune of Columbia, co-ordinate to the Congressional Research Service. The largest populations alive in California, Florida, Texas and New York, which traditionally have had had large immigrant populations.

One time the Department of Homeland Security designates a nation's immigrants as eligible for Temporary Protected Status, immigrants may apply if they entered the U.S. without authorization or entered on a temporary visa that has expired. Those with a valid temporary visa or another non-immigrant status, such every bit foreign students, are too eligible to utilize.

To be granted TPS, applicants must run across filing deadlines, pay a fee and prove they take lived in the U.South. continuously since the events that triggered relief from displacement. They too must meet criminal record requirements – for instance, that they have not been convicted of any felony or two or more than misdemeanors while in the U.S., or been engaged in persecuting others or terrorism.

Federal officials are required to announce at least 60 days before whatsoever TPS designation expires whether it will exist extended. Without a decision, it automatically extends six months. Congress and President George H.Westward. Bush authorized the TPS program in the 1990 Immigration Deed, granting the White House executive power to designate and extend the status to immigrants in the U.S. based on certain criteria.

CORRECTION (October. 29, 2021): Due to a typographical mistake, a previous version of the table past state misstated a required engagement of U.S. residence for Haitian immigrant eligibility (2010 designation). The required date was January. 12, 2011.

Notation: This is an update of a post originally published March ane, 2021.

D'Vera Cohn is a senior writer/editor focusing on clearing and demographics at Pew Enquiry Center.