When TPS Ends

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, we'll talk about one more way the Trump administration is seeking to cut the number of immigrants making homes here. Temporary protected status, or TPS, is set to expire for immigrants from seven countries, including Honduras, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, and Nepal, as well as Haiti, although that one's been blocked by a court but is far from settled.

The program, which gives migrants from designated countries legal work authorization and protection from deportation, is estimated to cover tens of thousands of New Yorkers and their families, according to an estimate by the National Immigration Forum. At the same time, the Trump administration is pursuing legal challenges to birthright citizenship. We know about that, raising other concerns about the rights and status of immigrants nationwide. We're going to talk about TPS with Elora Mukherjee, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants' Rights Clinic at the Columbia University Law School. Professor Mukherjee, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Professor Elora Mukherjee: Thank you, Brian. Glad to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, in our remaining time, we can take questions. She can't give exact legal advice on the radio, but she can talk in general about what people can do and what people's rights are at this moment with respect to TPS that's expiring for you or someone you know. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text. Would you just very briefly, Professor, remind everybody of what TPS or temporary protected status is, because this is different from what gets so much press, people being here undocumented, out of status, right?

Professor Mukherjee: Absolutely, Brian. Congress established TPS as part of the immigration laws in 1990. For the first few decades of TPS, this was not a political or controversial issues. Presidents of both parties, both Republican and Democratic presidents, used TPS a total of 33 times to designate countries as being unsafe for people to go back to. How TPS works today is that the secretary of Homeland Security can designate a foreign country for TPS due to conditions in the home country that temporarily prevent the country's nationals from returning there safely.

Typical reasons for the secretary to designate a country for TPS include ongoing armed conflict, such as a civil war, an environmental disaster, such as an earthquake or a hurricane, or it could be an epidemic that makes it difficult or impossible for people to return safely. Once a country has been designated for TPS, individuals who are physically present in the United States can apply for that benefit.

That benefit offers a number of protections. It prevents people from having TPS from being deported while they have that protection. It also means those individuals can't be detained by DHS on the basis of their TPS status. Critically, TPS holders can also obtain a lawful work permit, meaning permission to work in the US lawfully. Applying for TPS is a big decision. It means that a person affirmatively comes out of the shadows, makes their presence known to the federal government.

They provide all of their biographical information for themselves and their family members, their whereabouts, their fingerprints, their photos, and they pass criminal background checks. If a person has been convicted of more than one misdemeanor or any felony, then they're not eligible for TPS. This is an entirely law-abiding population that has largely been present for decades in the United States. As of last September, September 2024, there were about 1.1 million TPS holders in the United States.

Brian Lehrer: Is the rationale from the Trump administration in each of these cases, conditions in the home countries have become safe enough for these large numbers of people who are here in the window when TPS was extended to them that, in all cases, conditions have become safe enough like in the case of Haiti. I know there's an argument that a lot of people with TPS were here before the earthquake, which was over a decade ago, so that shouldn't be permanent. It's, by definition, temporary protected status. How do you hear the Trump administration position on this, and what would your response to it be?

Professor Mukherjee: Brian, that is exactly right. The government's position under the Trump administration is that temporary protected status should only be that, temporary. It is not meant for people to stay in the United States for decades. The Trump administration tried to end TPS in their first administration. In the first administration, they tried to end TPS for individuals from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan. A total of about 250 individuals were affected.

During the first Trump administration, a federal district court found that the Trump administration's efforts to terminate TPS were based on impermissible racial animus, unconstitutional racism. As many of your listeners will recall, at that time, Trump was reported as saying that he didn't want immigrants from so-called s-hole countries in the United States. I've learned I'm not allowed to use his language on the radio.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, we didn't.

Professor Mukherjee: That's what happened during the first Trump administration. Now, we're living in a different time. The composition of the Supreme Court has changed. This time around, under the second Trump administration, when DHS Secretary Noem ended TPS for about 350,000 Venezuelans, that was also found to be impermissible by the same federal district court, Judge Edward Chen of the Northern District of California, in late March of this year.

That decision was appealed by the executive branch all the way up to the Supreme Court. On May 19th of this year, in an 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court stripped those 350,000 Venezuelan TPS holders of their status. Shockingly, the Supreme Court did that in just a two-paragraph order without any reasoning at all. At that point, that was the single largest action stripping a group of non-citizens of their immigration status in modern US history.

Brian Lehrer: Let's get a caller with a story on here and a question. Taylor in Elmhurst, you're on WNYC. Hi, Taylor.

Taylor: Good morning. Thank you for having me. I'm an accountant here in Queens. I have met clients over the years from Honduras. Many of them under the TPS program, people that have been here since, I guess, 2001, 2000, 1999, those years. Some of them establish roots. They've been here 20, 25 years. They have US children and these taxis. A lot of them were explaining to me that they were in fear that this coming summer, the program wouldn't be renewed, and they will face deportation to a place where-- It's like you have half of your lifetime in this country.

Now, you're being sent back for no apparent reason other than just, "Well, we don't want you anymore." It didn't make sense. One of them, they used to have a business that one of the owners developed cancer. Now, she's undergoing cancer treatment. They ended up closing the business with a restaurant owned by husband and wife. The husband said, "Look, I can't carry on the business and help my wife with chemo, so I'm going to shut down the company, lay off workers, take care of my wife. If God forbids, we don't renew, it doesn't get renewed, I don't know what we're going to do. Sell that--"

Brian Lehrer: Yes, Taylor, I have to leave it there because we're coming near the end of the show. I'm glad he called in, Professor Mukherjee, because that's just the kind of heartbreaking story and just the kind of dilemma that so many people are facing now. What can people do? What would you advise in general as director of an immigration rights clinic for people who are having their TPS revoked, and maybe in a situation as extreme as the one that the caller describes, or even not?

Professor Mukherjee: The caller's examples exemplify the problem with TPS terminations. Honduras is set to have TPS terminated as of September 8th of this year. There are currently hundreds of thousands of US citizen children who are born to and live with TPS holders. TPS holders collectively contribute about $21 billion annually to the US economy in addition to paying about $5.2 billion in federal payroll, state and local taxes.

For all of these individuals who are so integrated into our communities and our daily lives, I would encourage all of them to, if possible, seek out a trustworthy immigration lawyer and assess all of your options. There may be forms of immigration relief that individuals are eligible for. For example, if a person is scared to go back to their home country on account of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, they may be eligible for asylum. If they've been a victim of a crime in the United States, they may be eligible for a U visa. These are all options to explore with a trustworthy immigration lawyer.

Brian Lehrer: That has to be the last word, I'm sorry to say, but interesting to know as a closing thought that there are other legal statuses that people can apply for, depending on their individual circumstances. Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants' Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School. Thank you very much for joining us.

Professor Mukherjee: Thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Stay tuned for Alison.

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