US to end protected status for Nicaragua immigrants

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The United States will end in January 2019 a special status given to 5,300 Nicaraguan immigrants that protects them from deportation, senior Trump administration officials said on Monday.

A program known as Temporary Protection Status, set up in 1990, exempts foreign nationals from being deported to home countries deemed unstable because of natural disasters or armed conflict. It protects more than 300,000 people living in the United States.

Immigrant rights advocates demonstrate against Donald Trump's immigration policies, during a rally in Washington, January 14, 2017. /AP Photo

Citing unnamed officials, Washington Post reported last Friday that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a letter to acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke on Tuesday that conditions in Central America and Haiti that had been used to justify the protection no longer applied.

The officials said the Temporary Protected Status for about 86,000 Honduran immigrants would be extended by six months until July 2018.

President Trump signs an executive order for border security and immigration enforcement improvements, January 25, 2017, at the Department of Homeland Security in Washington. /AP Photo

Last month, people close to Republican President Donald Trump’s administration said the White House was considering anti-immigration activists’ appeals to pull back on the program.

Trump campaigned last year on a promise to deport large numbers of immigrants, a racially tinged political theme that won him passionate support among some US voters.

Source(s): Reuters