What is TPS?

Temporary Protected Status (TPS)

What is TPS?

Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, is a life-saving immigration status that allows foreign nationals to remain in the U.S. if during the time they were in the U.S. something catastrophic happened in their country of origin preventing their safe return – for example war, famine, natural disaster, or epidemic. TPS allows people to work legally and be protected from deportation.

Who are TPS holders?

Will TPS be terminated for the designated countries?

The Trump administration has signaled it is in the process of phasing out the use of TPS. This means the administration will likely terminate TPS for many of the currently designated countries, affecting thousands of TPS holders, their families and communities.

Updates on Temporary Protected Status

Haiti: Haiti received an 18-month termination in Nov. 2017. The last day of TPS for Haiti will be July 22, 2019.

Sudan: TPS for Sudan received a 12-month termination in Oct. 2017. The last day of TPS for the Sudan will be Nov. 2, 2018.

South Sudan: TPS for South Sudan received an 18-month extension in September 2017.

Nicaragua: received a 12-month termination in Nov. 2017. The last day of TPS for Nicaragua will be Jan. 5, 2019.

Honduras: received a 6-month extension in Nov. 2017.

Upcoming TPS decision dates:

Jan. 8, 2018: El Salvador
Jan. 30, 2018: Syria
Apr. 25, 2018: Nepal
July 5, 2018: Yemen
July 19, 2018: Somalia
March 3, 2019: South Sudan

Immigrants and Their Children

Immigrants and Their Children Founded More Than Two-Fifths of All Fortune 500 Companies

The modern U.S. economy owes much of its success to the contributions of immigrants and their children. Among these contributions, it would be difficult to overstate the value of entrepreneurship. For instance, a new report from the Center for American Entrepreneurship (CAE) analyzes the role of immigrants and their children in 2017’s list of Fortune 500 companies.

Companies founded by immigrants include AT&T; Verizon; Procter & Gamble; PepsiCo; Pfizer; Goldman Sachs; and Facebook. Those founded by the children of immigrants include Apple; Ford Motor; Home Depot; Boeing; IBM; McDonald’s; and Staples. In total, 43 percent of all Fortune 500 companies were founded by an immigrant or the child of an immigrant.

These companies—which span numerous industries, from high-tech to retail to healthcare—wouldn’t exist if not for immigrants and their children.

CAE’s findings highlight just how critical immigrants are to the success of these powerhouse companies. Fortune 500 firms created by immigrants or the children of immigrants “are headquartered in 33 of the 50 states, employ 12.8 million people worldwide, and accounted for $5.3 trillion in global revenue in 2016,” according to the report.

Immigrants and their children are most prevalent among the biggest of the Fortune 500 companies, comprising 52 percent of the top 25 firms and 57 percent of the top 35. More precisely, 18.4 percent of today’s Fortune 500 companies were founded by at least one immigrant, and an additional 24.8 percent were founded by the child of an immigrant.

Neighbors Defend Immigrants

As Immigration Enforcement Ramps up, Neighbors Sign up to Defend Immigrants

In the face of heightened threats around immigration enforcement, communities are taking action to ensure due process for their undocumented community members. These rapid response efforts are being undertaken by a growing network of community members—from students to salesmen to social workers—who are volunteering to witness arrests conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Known as “Migra Watch” teams, these groups are forming around the country, and include groups like the Immigration Liberation Movement, a coalition of organizers, immigration attorneys, impacted individuals, and allies. This particular group was formed in the fall of 2016 and includes Migra Watch, which dispatches moral and legal observers to immigration raid sites.

Poised to act at a moment’s notice, Migra Watch volunteers are trained to manage distress calls, provide support to children whose family members have been detained or deported, and show up where ICE is conducting roundups of their immigrant neighbors. Trainings typically take place at churches or community centers, where legal residents and citizens are taught to not interfere with ICE operations, but to document them.

Volunteers are encouraged to take notes, photos, and provide eyewitness testimony if they believe ICE has acted outside of its authority. Most importantly, they use this information to track where the arrested immigrant is being sent and direct legal help to that location in the hopes of delaying or stopping the deportations of their friends and neighbors.

Grounds of Deportability

Grounds of Deportability: When Legal U.S. Residents Can Be Removed?

Although people who carry nonimmigrant visas or green card holder have the right to be in the United States, such rights depend entirely on them following certain rules and avoiding certain types of legal violations. The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act (I.N.A.) sets forth numerous grounds upon which a non-citizen may be deported (removed) back to the person’s country of origin.

This article discusses the reasons why a permanent resident who isn’t considered an “arriving alien” (one who left the country and was put into removal proceedings upon return) can be deported. Other things can get an permanent resident “arriving alien” deported. Such persons, even if they are let back into the country, are considered to be seeking readmission to the United States, so any reason for keeping people out of the U.S. in the first place may make them “inadmissible” and deportable. For a discussion of the grounds of inadmissibility

Only after an immigrant has successfully become a U.S. citizen, is he or she safe from the grounds of deportability. U.S. citizens cannot be removed unless they used fraud to gain their green card or citizenship.

Briefly summarized, a person may be deportable from the U.S. if he or she:

•was inadmissible at time of U.S. entry or of adjustment of status, or violates the terms of his or her visa, green card, or other status. (Permanent residents who have been absent from the United States for fewer than 180 continuous days don’t have to worry about admissibility upon their return except if they have committed certain crimes).

•had conditional permanent resident status (applicable to certain spouses, sons, and daughters of U.S. citizens as well as investor/entrepreneurs, with their spouses, and children) but had this status terminated.

•before, during, or within five years of the date of any U.S. entry, knowingly helped smuggle any other alien trying to enter the United States.

•has been convicted of an aggravated felony at any time after U.S. admission.


If you have any questions regarding Grounds of Deportability or any other immigration topic,
Please contact LEGiTiGO, today

TPS

What does the end of the TPS mean for Nicaragua?

The TPS is a Temporary Protection status that Congress created in 1990 for Central American countries that had conflicts of war or natural disasters in which this temporary humanitarian program guaranteed that thousands of Nicaraguans could live and work to send remittances to their families because of the devastating hurricane. Mitch in 1998, these people should have sought immigration assistance to legalize their status and know that this program could come to an end.

For Nicaragua it ends on January 5, 2018 and the secretary of the Department of National Security of the United States said that there will be a period of 12 months ending on January 5, 2019, in order to guarantee the orderly return of the Nicaraguan citizens who were hosted under the TPS.

What are the actions that a Nicaraguan can take in the United States before this legal action of the TPS for Nicaragua?

The first step would be to qualify for an opportunity for legal alternative immigration status if eligible.

Many families would have to start to move their household goods they have in the houses they lived in, the household goods allow the tax exemption only for domestic taxes, and if they bring new or used vehicles they would have to initiate a payment of customs services for the payment of taxes for said vehicles.

What work options are there for the Nicaraguans that had the TPS?

In Nicaragua there are more than 13 Call centers and in constant time open new campaigns this would be an excellent way of working for many compatriots who master the English language and an excellent workforce for the Call centers that the current market does not meet their demands for workers.

Other ways to generate income would be that many of these citizens start businesses so they would have a way of working and even generate jobs in their departments or municipalities.

Another market that would be revitalizing is the purchase of houses in purchase or rent in Nicaragua, this will benefit a lot the new developers that offer affordable housing to these Nicaraguans who will demand a home to live in Nicaragua.

Immigrants Help

How Immigrants Helped Boost American Jobs in the Midwest

At a time when anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies seem to be growing, immigrants in the United States continue to do what they have done for over a century—bring unique and vital experiences to the country that support our economy and society.

States in the Rust Belt region of the United States, for example, owe much of their economic and population growth in recent years to immigrants, according to a recent report by the Great Lakes Metro Chambers Coalition and New American Economy (NAE), a non-partisan coalition of mayors and business leaders from across the United States. Research has repeatedly found that population decline, due to aging and native residents moving away, hurts local economies by shrinking the tax base and hampering business and job creation.

Many cities in the Great Lakes region—comprising Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York (excluding New York City metro area)—have experienced this economic and population decline. Whereas the U.S. population grew 14.2 percent between 2000 and 2015, the overall population of the Great Lakes region only increased by 4.3 percent during that time. And yet much of this growth was driven by immigrants.

Significantly, foreign-born residents accounted for half of the total population growth in the Great Lakes region between 2000 and 2015. Some metro areas would have experienced significant population declines if not for immigrants; Detroit and Pittsburg, for example, would have lost over 200,000 and 100,000 people, respectively, without the growth of the foreign-born population in the metro area, according to the NAE report New Americans and a New Direction: The Role of Immigrants in Reviving the Great Lakes Region.

Refugee Admissions

Refugee Admissions Resume but Government Will Still Restrict Some Countries

With its current refugee ban formally expiring, this week the Trump administration announced it will resume the U.S. Refugee Admissions program—with one major caveat: refugees from 11 countries are generally barred from the country for an additional 90-day period.

Although the administration did not name the 11 countries subject to additional review, they appear to be Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Mali, North Korea, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, according to news outlets. With the exception of North Korea and South Sudan, these are all Muslim-majority countries.

In addition, new screening requirements and refugee restrictions are being implemented on the refugee program, as outlined in an October 23 memo sent to the White House by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke, and National Intelligence Director Dan Coats. The document suspends the admission of family members of refugees already admitted to the United States until “additional security measures” are implemented.
All refugees applying for resettlement will now be subject to intense screening measures effective immediately—even though refugees are already heavily vetted prior to their admission to the U.S. resettlement program. The additional requirements include providing specific addresses going back 10 years (instead of the current five years) for all places where they have lived for more than 30 days and listing a phone number and email address for all relatives on their family tree, rather than the current process of only requiring this information for relatives in the United States.

The burden of providing this information is significant for individuals and families who may have been on the move for several years, fleeing war and persecution.