Hondurans, Nicaraguans in Nevada to lose temporary protective status

Hundreds of Nevada residents from Honduras and Nicaragua who have been shielded from deportation for a quarter-century are set to lose their temporary protection after the Trump administration announced Monday that it was revoking their legal status.

Citizens from both countries were granted temporary protected status following the aftermath of the 1998 Hurricane Mitch, which killed more than 11,000 people and was recognized as the second-deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record.

More than 560 Hondurans and more than 50 Nicaraguans live in Nevada and received temporary protected status, according to 2018 data from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that since Honduras was designated for temporary protective status in 1999, Honduras made strides to overcome the hurricane impacts, and it is now safe for Hondurans to return home.

“Temporary Protected Status was designed to be just that: temporary,” Noem said in a statement.

Noem added that the DHS will help facilitate their voluntary return. According to the department, Honduran nationals are encouraged to use the U.S. Customs and Border Protection app to report their departure. They’ll receive a free plane ticket and a $1,000 exit bonus to help them resettle.

Documented to undocumented

For the roughly 80,000 affected recipients in the U.S., the TPS revocation means they will go from being documented to undocumented and will lose their right to live and work legally in the U.S. in the next 60 days.

“They’re kind of creating a larger population of undocumented immigrants than existed before,” said Michael Kagan, director of the UNLV Immigration Clinic.

The status check doesn’t necessarily mean they will be deported immediately, but it makes them vulnerable because the federal government already knows where they live since they have renewed their status every 18 months, Kagan said.

In order to qualify for the status, residents from Honduras and Nicaragua had to maintain “continuous physical presence” in the U.S. since 1999. Two misdemeanor convictions makes them ineligible for renewal, Kagan added.

The Trump administration’s decision was met with pushback Monday from groups seeking to block the decision.

The National TPS Alliance, a national organization aimed to defend the temporary protected status program, filed a lawsuit alongside others to challenge the decision. The organization previously filed a lawsuit in June to challenge the Trump administration’s early termination of temporary protected status for Haiti and Venezuela.

“Many of these people are homeowners,” said Martin Pineda, communications director for the National TPS Alliance. “They have their businesses, and they’ve been working legally in the United States. Their status has been terminated, and in 60 days they’re expected to go home and sell their homes.”

‘Cruel and reckless’

Nevada’s Democratic members of Congress also criticized the Trump administration’s decision Monday.

“Sending innocent families back into danger won’t secure our border or make America safer,” Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev, said on X. “All it does is tear apart communities and hurt our businesses.”

Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., called ending protections for the TPS recipients without comprehensive immigration reform that gives them a pathway to citizenship “cruel and reckless.”

“TPS recipients from Nicaragua and Honduras fled devastation more than 20 years ago, and they have since built their lives in the U.S. — raising children, working and contributing to our economy, and enriching our communities,” Rosen said in a statement.

She urged the passage of the SECURE Act, which provides a path to legal permanency residency for temporary protected status recipients and those with deferred enforcement departures. Both Rosen and Cortez-Masto are co-sponsors.

Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., said the Trump administration should be focusing on people who pose a public threat, “not targeting tens of thousands of people who play by the rules, contribute $21 billion to the U.S. economy, and pay $5.2 billion in taxes each year.”

Others applauded the Trump administration’s decision to cancel temporary protective statuses in general. The Washoe County Republican Party, for instance, posted on X in June that temporary protective status is temporary and that U.S. citizens should be prioritized.

Broken immigration laws?

Kagan said everybody would probably agree that extending a temporary status for more than a quarter of a century is not ideal, but it is a “reflection of how broken the immigration laws are.”

Many of the recipients who haven’t qualified for other legal recourses to obtain permanent residence have been stuck in limbo amid “many failed attempts” to pass immigration reform through multiple Republican-Democratic administrations, Kagan noted.

Recipients have long established their lives and families in the U.S., raising children, working jobs and paying mortgages and taxes, Kagan argued, adding that the loss of their salaries will have a cascading effect on their families’ finances and the economy. Some are also at retirement age, he said.

A DHS spokesperson said temporary protected status was never meant to last a quarter of a century.

“The impacts of a natural disaster impacting Nicaragua in 1999 no longer exist. The environmental situation has improved enough that it is safe enough for Nicaraguan citizens to return home,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “This decision restores integrity in our immigration system and ensures that TPS remains temporary.”

Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com and Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.