WASHINGTON--The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will terminate deportation protections for thousands of Hondurans and Nicaraguans living in the United States, according to U.S. government notices posted on Monday, part of President Donald Trump's broad effort to strip legal status from migrants.
The action, effective on September 6, will end Temporary Protected Status for an estimated 72,000 Hondurans and 4,000 Nicaraguans who have had access to the legal status since 1999, according to a pair of Federal Register notices.
The Republican president has sought to end temporary legal status for hundreds of thousands of migrants in the United States, including some who have lived and worked in the country legally for decades. The Trump administration already had moved to end TPS for 348,000 Venezuelans and 521,000 Haitians, as well as thousands from Afghanistan and Cameroon.
The administration has said deportation protections were overused in the past and that many migrants no longer merit protections. Democrats and advocates for the migrants have said that TPS enrollees could be forced to return to dangerous conditions and that U.S. employers depend on their labour.
TPS provides deportation relief and work permits to people already in the United States if their home countries experience a natural disaster, armed conflict or other extraordinary event.During his first term as president from 2017-2021, Trump sought to end most TPS enrollment, including the designations covering Honduras and Nicaragua, but his attempts were blocked by federal courts as unlawful.
The initial TPS designations for Honduras and Nicaragua were based on destruction caused by Hurricane Mitch, which tore through Central America in 1998 and killed at least 10,000 people, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in the termination notices that the countries had made significant recoveries, citing tourism in both countries, real estate investment in Honduras and the renewable energy sector in Nicaragua.
