The Trump administration announced on May 4, 2018 that it will end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Honduras nationals on January 5, 2020. 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 Honduras nationals in 1998 after a hurricane devasted the country and left it lacking basic infrastructure, sanitation services, and safe water supplies. Today, even though the country is still struggling with gang violence, poverty, and a breakdown of civil order, the Trump administration has decided that Honduras has sufficiently recovered from the quake for its citizens to return. There are currently 90,000 Hondurans who have lived in the U.S. for at least two decades who will be forced to leave the country in the next 18 months.
The termination of TPS for Honduras nationals 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 January 5, 2020. So far, the Trump administration has terminated TPS for Nepal, Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Sudan nationals, ending protected status for more than 425,000 people and leaving less than 80,000 people in the program. To learn more about TPS, please click here.
