The latest federal appeals court decision allowing the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for Nicaragua, Honduras and Nepal will affect thousands of immigrants in Florida.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week paused a lower court ruling that blocked the end of TPS for more than 60,000 people from those three countries.
Nationwide, about 52,000 TPS recipients hail from Honduras, more than 7,100 are nationals from Nepal and nearly 3,000 TPS holders are from Nicaragua. There are thousands of TPS holders in Florida from Honduras and Nicaragua.
Florida has the largest number of TPS holders — more than 400,000 — in the country. About 1.3 million people have TPS nationwide.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem can grant TPS to countries where conditions are deemed unsafe for return due to a natural disaster, political instability or other dangers. While it grants TPS holders the right to live and work in the U.S., it does not provide a legal pathway to citizenship.
Immigrant advocates in Florida say the federal appeals court decision "will deepen vulnerability, fear, and instability for hundreds of thousands of working families across the state."
"We believe no person should be forced to return to unsafe conditions or lose the protections they have built here over the years," said Maria Bilbao, the Campaigns Coordinator for American Friends Service Committee-FL.
The Trump administration has terminated TPS for tens of thousands of people — including Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants — as part of its mass deportation campaign.
