A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that tens of thousands of people living in the U.S. for humanitarian reasons are ineligible to apply to become permanent residents.
Justice Elena Kagan composed for the court that federal immigration law prohibits people that entered the country illegally and currently have Temporary Protected Status from looking”green cards” to stay in the nation permanently.
The designation applies to people who come from nations ravaged by disaster or war. It protects them from deportation and lets them operate legally. There are 400,000 people from 12 nations with TPS status.
The result in a case involving a few from El Salvador who were in the U.S. because the early 1990s turned on whether people who entered the country illegally and were given diplomatic protections were ever”admitted” into the USA under immigration law.
Kagan wrote they weren’t. “The TPS program gives foreign nationals nonimmigrant status, but it does not acknowledge them. So the conferral of TPS doesn’t earn an unlawful entrant. . .eligible” for a green card, she composed.
The House of Representatives already has passed legislation that would make it possible for TPS receivers to become permanent residents, Kagan noted. The bill faces uncertain prospects in the Senate.
The case pitted the Biden administration against immigrant groups that asserted many people who came to the U.S. for humanitarian reasons have dwelt in the country for several years, given birth to American citizens and put down roots in the U.S.
Back in 2001, the U.S. gave Salvadoran migrants legal defense to remain in the U.S. after a series of earthquakes in their home country.
Individuals from 11 other nations are likewise protected. They’re: Haiti, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.
Monday’s decision does not affect immigrants with TPS who initially entered the U.S. lawfully and then, say, overstayed their visa, Kagan noted. Because those folks were legally admitted to the country and later were granted diplomatic protections, they could want to become permanent residents.
