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Honduran and Nepali immigrants who are facing the loss of their temporary protections are breathing just a little bit easier, following the Trump administration agreeing to keep their status in place as a court battle plays out. The news, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipient Keshav Raj Bhattarai said during a press call Wednesday, “has given me renewed hope and energy to keep fighting.”
While TPS holders El Salvador, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Sudan successfully sued over termination of their protections last year, Honduran and Nepali immigrants were not included in that court action. They then launched their own lawsuit last month, “and hadn’t yet secured a court injunction in their case,” Vox’s Dara Lind reports. “But the administration is now agreeing to link the fate of Honduran and Nepali TPS recipients to the outcome of the existing TPS case.”
But as Bhattarai indicated during the press call, many families will ultimately be in danger due to the new makeup of the Supreme Court. “It’s likely that the TPS lawsuit will make its way to the Supreme Court,” Lind reports, “where the administration will likely prevail, given the five-justice conservative majority.” The justices may also hear litigation around the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals case in their next term. "I feel like I’ve been sick,” Bhattarai said, “and this agreement is a few drops of medicine.”
What this dad and hundreds of thousands of TPS, DACA, and Deferred Enforced Departure families need is permanent protections in the form of the newly introduced Dream and Promise Act, which would put all three groups onto a path to citizenship. Additionally, the bill would “permit certain eligible Dreamers deported by the Trump administration to apply for relief.” Congress must act now. Call (202) 224-3121 today and voice your support for the Dream and Promise Act.