Activists and citizens with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) march near the White House for residency protection in Washington DC in September.
Olivier Douliery / AFP via Getty Images
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Olivier Douliery / AFP via Getty Images
Activists and citizens with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) march near the White House for residency protection in Washington DC in September.
Olivier Douliery / AFP via Getty Images
For the past four years, Elsy Flores de Ayala has lived in limbo – not knowing if the life she built in America will remain intact or she will be deported back to El Salvador.
Flores de Ayala, who lives in Washington DC, has been legally allowed to live and work in the United States for more than two decades under the Temporary Protected Status program. be considered Her hometown is not safe to return to.
This winter, her stay threatened to expire after the Trump administration sought to revoke the program for immigrants from six countries — El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Sudan, Honduras and Nepal — by way of arguing that conditions in those countries has improved enough for people to return.
On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the show will continue for Flores de Ayala and more than 335,000 others until June 2024 amid an ongoing federal lawsuit to overturn President Trump’s ruling.
“This is a bit of a protection for us,” Flores de Ayala told NPR. “At least now we’ll have a nice vacation and we’ll have more time.”
Complaints filed by the ACLU, the Workers’ Day Network, and others are currently being filed with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals asking for a retrial. The Biden administration has officially reassigned protections to Haiti and Sudan but the other four countries included in the case – El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and Nepal – were only extended because of the lawsuit.
What is Temporary Protected Status?
In 1990, the program was established to assist immigrants who were unable to return home safely due to a humanitarian crisis such as armed conflict or natural disaster.
It applies to people already living in the United States, keeping them from being deported and granting them work permits.
Sixteen countries are currently designated for TPS, and such protections are typically reviewed by the Department of Homeland Security for renewal every 18 months. As of 2021, more than 400,000 immigrants have protected status. The largest populations live in California, Florida, Texas and New York.
Many recipients have lived in the United States for decades because of how often those protections have been renewed, but the program itself is not a direct path to U.S. citizenship.
“Many of them have lived here longer than they did in the country they were born in, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there is a path to citizenship,” said Emi MacLean, an attorney. said. Senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California. “It’s a failure of our immigration law.”
Flores de Ayala was visiting family in the US when El Salvador was devastated by a massive earthquake in 2001. Since becoming a TPS owner, Flores de Ayala says she has built a life she is proud of.
“We have worked here for decades, building our community here and giving our time to our children’s schools,” she said. “This is our home more than anywhere else.”
