The Trump administration announced Friday afternoon it will not renew Temporary Protected Status for 57,000 Honduran people who have lived in the U.S. since a 1999 hurricane, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
The administration will give the Hondurans 18 months — or until Jan. 5, 2020 — to return home. Hondurans are the second-largest national group of TPS beneficiaries.
“Since 1999, conditions in Honduras that resulted from the hurricane have notably improved. Additionally, since the last review of the country’s conditions in October 2016, Honduras has made substantial progress in post-hurricane recovery and reconstruction from the 1998 Hurricane Mitch,” DHS’s Office of Public Affairs said.
A DHS spokesperson told the Washington Examiner earlier Friday that Nielsen “has not yet made a decision.”
The final decision was the result of a review of environmental disaster-related conditions Honduras faced following the natural disaster in 1999.
“Based on careful consideration of available information, including recommendations received as part of an inter-agency consultation process, 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. Thus, as required under the applicable statute, the current TPS designation must be terminated,” DHS added.
Homeland Security said the year-and-a-half delay will give TPS recipients and the Honduran government enough time to process and respond to the change in U.S. policy.
Elaine Duke, former acting director of DHS, in November delayed a decision on whether to renew the two-year program.
Instead, the administration announced Hondurans would be given a six-month extension of the Jan. 5, 2018, expiration date as it decides the fate of the program.
Hondurans were permitted to move to the U.S. under the program after Hurricane Mitch destroyed parts of the country in 1999.
Since the fall, DHS has said it will conclude TPS programs for Nepal, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Sudan, Liberia, Haiti, and Honduras. Each of those programs were renewed every two years under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
However, Nielsen announced an 18-month extension for the TPS program for Syrians, which affects 7,000 people in the U.S.
Approximately 300,000 people have been approved for TPS since Congress created the program in 1990.
