The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced actions to comply with the preliminary injunction order of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Ramos v. Nielsen. Beneficiaries under the temporary protected status (TPS) designations for Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti, and El Salvador will retain their TPS while the preliminary injunction remains in effect, provided that an individual’s TPS status is not withdrawn under INA § 244(c)(3) or 8 CFR § 244.14 because of ineligibility.
DHS is automatically extending through April 2, 2019, the validity of TPS-related employment authorization documents (EADs), Forms I-797, Notice of Action (Approval Notice), and Forms
I-94 (Arrival/Departure Record) (collectively “TPS-related documentation”), as specified in the notice, for beneficiaries under the TPS designations for Sudan and Nicaragua, provided that the affected TPS beneficiaries remain otherwise individually eligible for TPS. The notice also explains DHS’s plans to issue a subsequent notice that will describe the steps DHS will take after April 2, 2019, to continue its compliance with the preliminary injunction.
The TPS designations of Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti, and El Salvador will remain in effect as long as the preliminary injunction remains in effect. TPS for those countries will not be terminated unless and until any superseding, final, non-appealable judicial order permits the implementation of such terminations, DHS said.
Further, DHS is automatically extending the validity of TPS-related documentation for those beneficiaries under the TPS designations for Sudan and Nicaragua, as specified in the notice. Those documents will remain in effect for six months from the issuance of the preliminary injunction (which occurred on October 3, 2018), through April 2, 2019, provided the individual’s TPS is not withdrawn under INA § 244(c)(3) or 8 CFR § 244.14 because of ineligibility, DHS said. In the event, the preliminary injunction is reversed and that reversal becomes final, DHS will allow for an “orderly transition period.”
The Federal Register notice is at https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2018-10-31/pdf/2018-23892.pdf. Information on the status of the preliminary injunction is available at https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/temporary-protected-status.