Americans hope their government officials make decisions based on reason, rather than as part of a broad ideological agenda against individuals not born in the United States. However, the Trump administration’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for at least 50,000 Hondurans living in the U.S. for two decades, many with U.S.-born children, fits a clear pattern: If it’s bad for immigrants, then it’s “good to go” as administration policy.
I recently asked two experienced immigration attorneys if they could name any Trump administration policies that made it easier for high-skilled foreign nationals to work in or immigrate to the United States. They could not name any such policies. The story is the same when it comes to the rest of the U.S. immigration system. Since Donald Trump became president, the country has witnessed one policy after another aimed at making it more difficult for foreign-born individuals to stay in or immigrate to the United States.
“More than 50,000 Hondurans who have been allowed to live and work in the United States since 1999 will have 20 months to leave the country or face deportation, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced Friday, the latest in a series of DHS measures aimed at tightening U.S. immigration controls,” reported Nick Miroff of the Washington Post.
Hondurans in the United States received Temporary Protected Status in 1999 after Hurricane Mitch devastated parts of Central America. “The Secretary of Homeland Security may designate a foreign country for TPS due to conditions in the country that temporarily prevent the country's nationals from returning safely, or in certain circumstances, where the country is unable to handle the return of its nationals adequately,” according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). “Once granted TPS, an individual also cannot be detained by DHS on the basis of his or her immigration status in the United States.”
The decision to terminate TPS for Hondurans is the latest in a series of administration actions to expel long-term foreign nationals living under protected status in the United States.
“By ending Temporary Protected Status for Honduras, the [Trump] administration has now ended TPS for 98% of the 317,000 people in the program. They come from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan,” noted USA Today’s Alan Gomez.
In a statement announcing the decision, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said, “The Secretary determined that the disruption of living conditions in Honduras from Hurricane Mitch that served as the basis for its TPS designation has decreased to a degree that it should no longer be regarded as substantial . . . Since 1999, conditions in Honduras that resulted from the hurricane have notably improved.”
The Department of Homeland Security's justification for ending TPS has raised questions: “It was not clear from the DHS statement which improvements Nielsen was referring to,” noted Miroff of the Washington Post. “Honduras remains one of the most violent countries in the world and has been roiled by political instability since presidential elections last year whose legitimacy was rejected by the Organization of American States and other international observers.”
Moreover, at the same time the administration has ordered Hondurans in the U.S. to leave because their home country’s conditions are said to be fine, many thousands of Hondurans who now live in Honduras are fleeing because conditions are so dangerous. (See here.)
“Widespread violence across Honduras remained a key factor of forced migration from the country,” reported Amnesty International. “According to UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, between January and October, 14,735 Hondurans sought asylum worldwide, mostly in Mexico and the USA. However, large numbers of Hondurans also continued to be forcibly returned from these countries to the same life-threatening situations which initially pushed them to escape.”
According to an analysis by Robert Warren and Donald Kerwin of the Center for Migration Studies:
- There are 53,500 U.S.-born children of Honduran TPS beneficiaries who must live under dangerous conditions in Honduras or be separated from their parents (who will be forced to leave the United States).
- Honduran TPS beneficiaries have a strong work ethic: 85% are working, including 17% who are self-employed. Approximately 22% of Hondurans with TPS have a home mortgage.
- Similar to the Dreamer population, 23% of Hondurans with TPS were children 15 or younger when they arrived in the U.S.
Removing Hondurans with U.S.-born children to an unsafe country will separate families and achieve no supportable policy objective. No economists believe forcing 50,000 people out of the country will “free up” jobs for U.S. workers, as some immigration critics may argue. There is no such thing as a fixed number of jobs. When new people enter the labor force, they create additional jobs through consumer spending, entrepreneurship and encouraging increased investment. U.S. economic growth is harmed by a stark reality: Many U.S. employers cannot find enough workers to grow. There are “73 counties in the United States with unemployment rates of 2 percent or lower,” reported the Washington Post last June.
The decision to end Temporary Protected Status for Hondurans was based on antipathy towards the foreign-born. It was not the first such decision by the administration and, unfortunately, it is unlikely to be the last.
