We reported here last week on the request by Democratic senators and others that Ukraine be put on the list of countries whose citizens in the U.S. could be granted “Temporary Protection Status.” That designation would permit them to remain in the U.S., regardless of their status otherwise, for an officially limited period of time (18 months unless extended). Extensions are routine, however, and at this point they are virtually built into the system, as some TPS nationals have enjoyed the status for decades.
As expected, the Department of Homeland Security swiftly granted TPS to those Ukrainians already in the U.S. on March 1, 2022. No one expects that date to be final, however, as DHS is notorious for moving cutoff dates forward. As Robert Law of the Center for Immigration Studies said, “They have constantly violated the law with this bogus re-designation behavior. . . . they’ve done it with pretty much every single country. There’s no confidence that this administration will not move up that cutoff date.”
The new designation would immediately allow the approximately 75,000 Ukrainians currently here to join roughly 700,000 other TPS designates from 13 countries, some of whom have been under “temporary” protection since 1991.
There’s more, of course. The no-crisis-goes-to-waste crowd is seeing an opportunity to further erase our immigration laws along with our borders. For example, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told Rachel Maddow, “If we grant TPS to Ukrainian refugees, this is also an opportunity to finally create a path to citizenship for TPS recipients.”
AOC’s Senate colleague Bob Menendez (D-NJ) thinks this is a good time to add more countries to the TPS list: “I will continue to urge the Administration [to] utilize this statute to protect more populations who are unable to return home, including nationals of Cameroon, Ethiopia and Afghanistan,” he said in a statement.
BuzzFeed.news describes how an Indian national who had been living legally in Ukraine is benefitting from the new TPS decision intended for Ukrainians.
The Indian, referred to by BuzzFeed as “Alex,” now safely resettled with his family in the U.S., recounted how when the war began, “All [he] could focus on was finding the quickest way to get his family out of Ukraine and into the United States.” After driving his car out of Ukraine, he was able to fly to America on a U.S. tourist visa he just happened to be holding in reserve.
BuzzFeed admits that because Alex is not a Ukrainian citizen, it’s not certain if he will officially benefit from TPS, though his newly acquired American immigration lawyer says she will argue that he should obtain TPS because he had “habitually resided” in Ukraine.
For the time being, we can assume that Alex and his family will now be habitually residing in the United States, along with 75,000 others, with no doubt more on the way.
For more, see Breitbart News.