U.S. Government to Extend 250,000 Temporary Visas After Lost Court Case

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants in U.S. Temporary Protected Status are breathing a sigh of relief today after the Trump Administration announced it was extending legal status for citizens of El Salvador, Nicaragua, Haiti and Sudan until Jan 2, 2020. It is currently estimated that around 300,000 people are in the U.S. under TPS, around 250,000 being citizens of these four countries.

The U.S. allows citizens of certain countries to remain in the U.S. under TPS if they have no other ways of gaining legal immigration status but are also not able to return to their home countries safely because of temporary conditions there. In the case of El Salvador, Nicaragua, Haiti and Sudan, legal protections were set to expire between April and September of this year.

The announcement came after a court victory of nine plaintiffs from the four mentioned countries. Another lawsuit is currently underway with plaintiffs from Nepal and Honduras, whose protections expire in June 2019 and January 2020. Only Sudan gained TPS because of ongoing armed conflict while citizens of all other countries who sued or are currently suing are protected because of natural disasters, mainly earthquakes, affecting them.