Honduran immigrants may be next to lose protected status
57,000 who moved to US legally in limbo as White House weighs TPS
MIAMI – For 20 years, Orlando Lopez has tried to be a model immigrant.
He left his native Honduras after Hurricane Mitch destroyed his family’s farm in 1998 and secured temporary legal status in the United States. He bought a house in South Florida, started a trucking business that employs 10 drivers and made sure he never ran afoul of the law. He pays his taxes.
But now, Lopez could become the latest legal immigrant forced out of the country by the Trump administration. Over the past year, the administration has been ending Temporary Protected Status, a federal program that has allowed more than 435,000 immigrants from 10 countries to legally live and work in the U.S. for decades.
The final decision on 57,000 Hondurans is expected next month.
“I’ve always had faith that President Trump, or any president, would touch their heart and say, ‘These people have earned their residence, their citizenship,’ ” Lopez said. “We don’t come here to hurt Americans. We come here to serve them. To work. I thought we were the ones this country was looking for.”
Temporary Protected Status was created by Congress in 1990 to allow people from countries that have been hit by natural disasters or armed conflicts to live legally in the U.S. while their home countries recover.
The Trump administration argues that the program has been extended too many times and that conditions have improved enough in each country.
One by one, the administration has ended TPS for Nicaraguans, Sudanese, Haitians and Salvadorans.
The president’s supporters have cheered the decision by repeating a common phrase: “T” is for “temporary.”
Defenders of the program say that ignores the reality of the hundreds of thousands of families who will be devastated if they are forced to leave the U.S. They argue that it would’ve been understandable to end the TPS designations after two or three years but that it’s cruel to do so after 20 or 30 years.
The Honduran government is holding out hope.
Gerardo Simon, who oversees consular services for Honduras, said its officials have been doing everything they can to appease the Trump administration. That includes casting one of only nine votes at the United Nations last year in support of Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. They’ve also enhanced efforts to combat drug-trafficking cartels and human smuggling.
“We’ve demonstrated that we’re closely aligned with this country,” he said. “Now we’re asking for a favor.”