‘Immigrants in the US on temporary status must seek permanent residency or leave the country’
“Either try to fill out the paperwork and stay here permanently, or we will help you return to your country.”
WASHINGTON:- US Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen has announced that immigrants in the United States with temporary protected status must seek permanent residency or leave their country.
The remarks on CNN’s “State of the Union” program followed a divided Supreme Court ruling last week that allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to strip millions of Haitian and Syrian immigrants of their humanitarian status, which protects them from deportation to their home countries ravaged by conflict and poverty.
Mullin said, “Either try to fill out the paperwork and stay here permanently, or we will help you return to your country.”
Mullin added, “We will actually give you a plane ticket, as well as about $2,100 to help you resettle when you get there, but the courts and its very name, Temporary Protected Status, is not permanent status.”
Federal law allows the administration to grant temporary legal residency in the United States to people fleeing war, disaster, or other adverse circumstances.
This status was previously renewed gradually and, despite the move to end these protections, the State Department has now even issued a travel advisory warning against travel to Haiti or Syria, citing widespread violence, crime, terrorism, and kidnapping.
The United States first granted TPS to Haitians in 2010 after a devastating earthquake and to Syrians in 2012 after their country was engulfed in civil war.