The Trump administration has abruptly ended protection from deportation, known as temporary protected status, for all illegal immigrants in the United States from Somalia who had been covered under the government program, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem decided that “allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interests,” according to a statement given to the Washington Examiner Tuesday morning, giving Somalis in the TPS program two months’ warning before Immigration and Customs Enforcement could show up looking for them.
“Temporary means temporary. Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status,” Noem’s statement said. “We are putting Americans first.”
Somalis will now have until March 17 to leave the U.S.
Somali immigrants have been accused of orchestrating a successful billion-dollar fraud ring that siphoned large sums of money from the U.S. government intended for statewide charities in Minnesota.
Republicans and the Trump administration are pushing for the denaturalization of any immigrant-turned citizen who is found to have stolen U.S. tax dollars and fraudulently obtained Minnesota welfare funds.
Roughly 2,400 illegal immigrants from Somalia are protected from deportation under TPS, including 600 residing in Minnesota, according to Fox News.
TPS is a designation made every 18 months by the DHS secretary that determines whether a country should be exempt from having its citizens returned from the U.S. because its government is unable to accept them due to natural disasters, famine, or war.
The DHS secretary is responsible for deciding whether to renew TPS for a country.
Congress created TPS in 1990 to help people from countries that had been seriously harmed. Countries can request TPS from the U.S. government at any time.
Trump has criticized his predecessors for renewing TPS for various nations and said crises that began decades ago in those countries shouldn’t affect their ability to take back their own citizens now.
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TPS was first granted to Somalia in September 1991. It was previously re-designated in 2001 and 2012.
TPS is given to people already in the U.S., whether legally or illegally, and allows them to work here and avoid deportation if they are unlawfully present.
