The Temporary Protected Status (TPS) category, a legal immigration program, is anything but temporary. The Obama Administration has just added Nepal to its list of countries whose citizens can stay as temporary refugees, work (and probably vote!) here forever because the temporary designation is simply extended every time it expires.
I say this repeatedly, but when your friends (or your Member of Congress) says legal immigration is good, remember TPS and know that they don’t know what they are talking about.
The gist of it is that we would be considered bad people if we sent nationals back to their home country in the middle of a crisis, but the problem is that ten years or more after the crisis is long over, we simply extend their stay as they wait for the Obama/Republican amnesty. The temporary designation is a sham!
From NBC News:
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has granted Nepal Temporary Protected Status (TPS) under the Immigration and Nationality Act following the devastation of the massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake of April 25 and subsequent earthquakes and aftershocks which are estimated to have killed over 5,200 people, injured more than 12,500 people, and displaced approximately 2.8 million people.
This designation will allow approximately 10,000 to 25,000 Nepali nationals currently in the United States to stay and to work until December 2016, even if their visas expire, without threat of being detained or deported.
They will be permitted to send money out of the country (called remittances) which is a drain on OUR economy! In 2012, $123,273,000,000 left the US via remittances to the third world. The next time you see one of those studies being promoted by the likes of ‘Welcoming America’ about how immigrants boost the local economy, ask if they included remittances leaving America in their study!
In addition to safety concerns, being authorized to work in the United States will allow Nepali nationals to work and send money back to Nepal to help the country rebuild.
Other countries which have been granted TPS in the past due to ongoing armed conflict, environmental disasters, and other extraordinary conditions include Haiti, Honduras, El Salvador, and Syria.
More at NBC here.
By the way, I heard recently that there are up to 25,000 Syrians in the US eligible to stay under TPS.
For a laugh, check this out: Hondurans were given TPS in 1999! Salvadorans in 2001 and Haitians in 2011. So much for TEMPORARY!
There is an application in for Yemen too!