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WASHINGTON — The administration of President Joe Biden has "greatly expanded" the pool of immigrants eligible for temporary protected status in the United States compared to his predecessor, President Donald Trump.
According to a new analysis by the Pew Research Center, nearly 1.2 million immigrants in the United States from 16 countries are potentially able to claim temporary protected status, or TPS, as it's known. The pool of 1.2 million includes more than 710,000 Venezuelans and 184,035 Salvadorans, who, together, account for around three-quarters of the total.
The TPS program, typically applied to those from countries facing unrest or environmental calamities, is just one aspect of U.S. immigration policy, the focus of increasingly heated debate across the nation as immigrant apprehensions surge at the U.S.-Mexico border. In Utah, 6,480 people had been granted temporary protected status, according to a Congressional Research Service report last December; it's the 16th highest figure among the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
The number of undocumented immigrants in the country perhaps spurs the most intense debate among political leaders and others. That figure totaled around 10.5 million as of 2021, down from a peak of 12.2 million in 2007, according to a Pew report released last November. At any rate, Pew noted that the temporary protected status approaches by Trump and Biden are starkly different.
"The Biden administration's expansions stand in contrast to the Trump administration's efforts to end TPS for nearly all beneficiaries," Pew said in its March 29 report.
Temporary protected status is granted in certain circumstances to residents of impacted nations due to civil war, other armed conflicts and environmental disasters, among other things. Getting the status gives recipients "time-limited permission to live and work in the United States and avoid potential deportation," Pew said.
Aside from Venezuela and El Salvador, the only other countries of the Western Hemisphere on the list of temporary protected status nations are Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua. Ukraine is on the list stemming from the ongoing war with Russia, as well as 10 other countries from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Last February, Ecuadorians across the country, including a contingent in Utah, called on the federal government to expand temporary protected status protections to Ecuadorians in the United States. So far, Biden administration officials haven't acted on the calls.
