The Department of Homeland Security is preparing to end the temporary protected status (TPS) granted to 15,000 Nepalis in 2015, after a devastating magnitude 7.8 earthquake hammered their country, The Washington Post reports, citing internal planning documents. There are only about 9,000 of those Nepalis left in the country, according to Congressional Research Service estimates, and they will have until June 24, 2019, to leave the U.S., once Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen signs off on the order.
The Trump administration has been reviewing all communities covered by TPS permits, and it has already revoked the special status for 200,000 Salvadorans, 50,000 Haitians, and smaller numbers of immigrants from Nicaragua, Sudan, and Liberia, and Nielsen is likely to end TPS for 57,000 Hondurans in May. In January, Nielsen extended the TPS status for about 6,000 Syrians. Congress created the TPS designation in 1990 so the U.S. had a mechanism to not send people back to countries hit by natural disasters, wars, and other destabilizing tragedies.
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