US to renew TPS for 6,900 Syrians but exclude new applicants
US to renew temporary status for 6,900 Syrians but exclude new applicants
A US official confirmed to The National the administration’s intent to renew but not accept new applicants
Joyce Karam
February 1, 2018
Updated: February 1, 2018 01:27 AM
The Trump administration is expected to continue to grant 6,900 Syrian on US soil temporary protected status (TPS), while at the same time stopping short of allowing an estimated 2,000 new applicants of acquiring that designation.
Following weeks of deliberations between the Department for Homeland Security (DHS), the State Department and the White House, the decision according to the Associated Press will be announced today to extend TPS for another 18 months.
A US official confirmed to The National the administration’s intent to renew but not accept new applicants, while emphasising that the decision will be made official when announced by the DHS later on Wednesday. The deadline for making the decision was yesterday, 60 days before the current TPS expires on March 31. But the debate within the administration over the new applicants delayed the decision according to sources monitoring the issue.
The AP report quoting two DHS officials said the US government “will extend the protections, but won’t re-designate Syria as having conditions that prevent its citizens from returning safely.” That measure will block further applications already in place from obtaining a TPS, and will affect around 2,000 Syrian immigrant in the US since 2016.
“While the extension is the right decision given the facts on the ground and the intent behind the existence of TPS, a lack of re-designation will leave some 2,000 Syrians in the lurch - with no where to go and no way to remain here lawfully”, Muna Jondy, a legal consultant for Americans for a Free Syria told The National.
Syria earned a TPS designation in 2012 after the war broke out, and its status was routinely renewed under the Obama administration.
Today, it grants a temporary stay for 6,900 individuals due to the “violent conflict and the deteriorating humanitarian crisis continuing to pose significant risk throughout Syria.”
But the TPS program has not been popular with the Trump administration which has terminated it in the case of El Salvador, Nicaragua and Haiti, affecting nearly 300,000 individuals.
For Syrians, the continuation of the war across the country, means the TPS recipients in many cases don't have the option to return.
The United Nations has identified the number of registered Syrian refugees at five-and-a-half million since the conflict started in 2011.
Additionally Trump administration has put a cap of 45,000 for total number of refugees to be admitted to the US in 2018, but Syria is on the new list of countries whose citizens are restricted from acquiring visas into the United States.
Activists fear that by blocking new applicants, those Syrians already in the US applying TPS will have nowhere to go. “They are Syrians who entered lawfully and now will either have to leave to an almost certain death or remain here unlawfully in the shadows” said Ms Jundy.
https://www.thenational.ae/world/the...cants-1.700718