On Monday, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled that thousands of people living in the U.S. for humanitarian reasons are ineligible to apply to become permanent residents if they entered the U.S. illegally.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court that federal immigration law prohibits people who entered the country illegally and now have Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from seeking “green cards” to remain in the country permanently.
The TPS designation applies to people who come from countries ravaged by war or disaster. It protects them from deportation and allows them to work legally in the U.S. Currently, there are 400,000 people from 12 countries with TPS status: El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.
The case, Sanchez et ux. v. Mayorkas, involved a couple from El Salvador who have been in the U.S. since the 1990s, and questioned whether people who entered the country illegally and later were given humanitarian protections under TPS were ever “admitted” into the United States under immigration law, as is required for those seeking lawful permanent resident status within the U.S.
Kagan wrote that they were not. “The TPS program gives foreign nationals nonimmigrant status, but it does not admit them. So the conferral of TPS does not make an unlawful entrant...eligible” for a green card, she wrote. The decision does not affect immigrants with TPS who initially entered the U.S. legally and then, say, overstayed their visa, Kagan noted. Because those people were legally admitted to the country and later were given humanitarian protections, they can seek lawful permanent resident status.
The American Dream and Promise Act, which has passed in the House of Representatives, would permit TPS recipients to apply for permanent residence even if they first entered the U.S. without inspection, but its chances of passage in the Senate remain uncertain.