The Department of Homeland Security has announced today that current Nepal Temporary Protected Status (TPS) beneficiaries will have 60 days, or until July 23, 2018, to re-register for the final time in order to maintain status through the program’s expiration date of June 24, 2019. Employment authorization documents that will expire on June 24, 2018 will be automatically extended through to December 21, 2018. TPS is granted to certain groups of people in the wake of natural disasters, wars, outbreaks of disease, and other catastrophes that would make it difficult for them to return safely to their home countries. Government officials periodically review the program to decide whether to extend it, and most groups have received regular extensions in the past. TPS was granted to Nepalese nationals three years ago when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the country, there are currently around 9000 people from Nepal living in the U.S. on TPS. On April 26, 2018, the Trump administration decided that the current state of Nepal has recovered enough that its citizens can return to the country and terminated the program for Nepalese nationals.
The termination of TPS for Nepal means that beneficiaries will lose their work authorization, legal status, and the ability to remain in the United States unless they are able to obtain another lawful status by June 24, 2019. So far, the Trump administration has terminated TPS for Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Sudan nationals, leaving less than 100,000 people in the program. To learn more about TPS, please click here.
