(The Center Square) – President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportation may encounter some significant hurdles if two Virginia senators succeed in asking President Joe Biden to extend Temporary Protected Status “for all eligible countries.”
Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner are urging the president in his final days in office to extend the designation beyond Biden’s recent action for individuals from El Salvador, Venezuela, Sudan and Ukraine.
The senators are asking the president to add individuals from countries such as Afghanistan, Burma, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen, which they say are eligible.
John Shu, a legal scholar who served in both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush’s administration, explains Temporary Protected Status will likely hamstring Trump’s efforts to deport undocumented immigrants.
Even if the incoming secretary of Homeland Security, Trump nominee and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, decides to revoke TPS, individuals from those countries would be given 60 days’ notice, and lawsuits would likely be filed, further delaying action.
On Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced an extension for Venezuela for 18 months between April 3 and Oct. 2, 2026. This could pose an issue for the Trump administration vowing to crack down and deport members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan prison gang that now has a presence in over a dozen states. Its members have been linked to violent crimes, such as the murder of Laken Riley in Georgia.
Shu says Temporary Protective Status enacted in 1990 under George H.W. Bush was intended to be short-term and to help individuals from countries experiencing issues such as civil war or famine.
“There’s no civil war in Venezuela,” Shu says. “TPS was never designed to allow millions of people legal status. It was enacted to be temporary.”
The senators acknowledged in their letter that many individuals have lived in the country “for decades.” The pair claim individuals could be “at risk” by returning to their home country.
“Unfortunately, TPS beneficiaries are at risk of losing their legal status and could face removal proceedings to countries that have been deemed unsafe to return to and where their lives would be at grave risk,” the senators wrote. “The incoming administration has vowed to terminate the TPS program, just as they attempted to during their first term. Within the first six months of this incoming term, six TPS designations, covering over 76,000 beneficiaries, are set to expire.”
Shu underscored that the security risk of extending TPS to individuals from many countries indicated “the U.S. cannot access criminal records” from individuals’ home countries – suggesting there are too many unknowns.
If the senators are successful, the move will likely create a major barrier to the Trump administration’s plan to implement its ambitious mass deportation plan.
