The Department of Homeland Security announced the designation of Ukraine under the Temporary Protected Status on March 3. The program grants its beneficiaries with protections allowing them to live and work in the U.S. without being detained by DHS on the basis of their immigration status for 18 months at a time.
I am proud to announce that we will be providing Temporary Protected Status — or #TPS — to those Ukrainian nationals who are present in the United States as of March 1, 2022. pic.twitter.com/3tiR29HFJr
— Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (@SecMayorkas) March 3, 2022
“Our hearts stand with the Ukrainian people who are suffering so much tragedy and so much loss,” Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, said in a video. “We at the Department of Homeland Security are acting in support of them not just in support of the Ukrainian people in Ukraine but also those here present in the United States.”
DHS grants TPS to specific countries whose citizens can not safely return home due to ongoing armed conflict or environmental disasters.
There are currently more than 320,000 TPS beneficiaries across the U.S. from 12 countries, not including Ukraine. This new protection could benefit around 75,000 of the 350,000 Ukrainians in the U.S. according to the Congressional Research Service.
Charlotte immigration lawyer Cynthia Aziz, says she was thrilled when she found out about Ukraine's TPS designation.
“The scenes that we see the families that we know of that are experiencing this horror. This is the least we could do is protect those that are here,” Aziz said. “So this was the right thing to do and I'm grateful for it.”
But Aziz points out that this protection doesn’t help all Ukrainians.
“I wish we could do more because there's people that we can't help that are outside this country right now and whose family members are here,” Aziz said. “But at least we're helping those that are here.”
Unlike refugee or asylum status, people seeking TPS must already reside in the at the time of their country’s designation. In Ukraine’s case, DHS requires Ukrainians to have resided in the U.S. before March 1 of this year in order to be eligible for the protection.
“It is not available to someone outside the country. That's the other key,” Aziz said. “So people often get worried if you give TPS and people just get in here and try to get it. No, it doesn't work that way. They are not going to be allowed in.”
The TPS designation can help Ukrainians who are in the country illegally as well as students, tourists and temporary workers whose authorization to be in the U.S. could expire before it is safe to return to their home country.
However, Aziz says TPS alone does not provide a path to permanent residency or citizenship in the U.S.
“This is a temporary measure to alleviate the burden of masses of people from returning to a country where there's no place for them, which is what we have right now,” Aziz said. There's no way they could safely return. The infrastructure's gone and there's still shooting everywhere violence. So this is not a long term solution.”
The protections are currently available for 18 months at which point DHS can choose to renew, end or redesignate Ukraine. If redesignated, Ukrainians who entered the U.S. after March 1 could be protected.
Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, and a week later Ukraine received its TPS designation. Aziz points out this might be faster than the designation for other countries, but says it was appropriate based on the situation.
“I think the circumstances that gave rise to the need for TPS and to protect those that were here happened so quickly,” Aziz said. “So I don't think it was treated better or differently or any kind of bias in it.”
Erik Villalobos is the communications manager at the National TPS Alliance, a grassroots organization with more than 50 nationwide committees including one in North Carolina.
Villalobos says the Alliance joined other organizations in the call for TPS to be designated for Ukraine.
“TPS should be used for moments like these where you have this ongoing conflict inside of Ukraine, potentially millions of lives are at risk. Millions of people are being displaced,” Villalobos said. “So it's sort of the responsibility of the Biden administration to provide this kind of immediate relief.”
But Villalobos mentions that while he is in support of Ukraine’s TPS designation, he also hopes other countries undergoing internal conflicts will receive TPS designation or redesignation.
For example, he mentions Guatemala as a country in need of TPS designation and El Salvador as a country that could benefit from TPS redesignation.
“It really goes to show the amount of executive authority the Biden administration has to protect millions of people at this moment,” Villalobos said. “Not just Ukrainians, but millions of other people, too.”
Ana Miriam Carpio is the founder of UNISAL, a non-profit Charlotte organization that supports immigrants. The organization focuses particularly on immigrants with TPS, especially ones from El Salvador.
Carpio says the organization has helped other non-Latino immigrants, like those from Nepal and Haiti with securing TPS and says they’re ready to support Ukrainian immigrants in the state.
“If someone comes, our doors are open. We had to do something similar with immigrants from Nepal,” Carpio said. “Think about it, they didn’t speak English or Spanish and they spoke such a difficult language. So we brought in a translator from a university and were able to help them.”
She says her staff is trained to support immigrants with filling out the TPS paperwork.
“We have the experience. We know what information is needed, we are familiar with the documents, the certificates,” Carpio said. “And now with technology we can add in a translator for the language. That’s what we’ll do because we’re going to have to.”
Carpio and her team might also need to find interpreters for Afghan nationals.
DHS announced on March 16, that anyone from Afghanistan who has been in the U.S. before that date will now be eligible for TPS.
According to DHS, this new TPS designation could help around 2,000 Afghan nationals who were already in the U.S. and did not receive protections through the Operation Allies Welcome program. That includes students or temporary workers.
Operation Allies Welcome protected more than 72,000 Afghan nationals who arrived in the U.S. as part of the evacuation efforts a few months ago and provided them with work authorization for a period of two years.
In order to join the other more than 16,000 immigrants in North Carolina with TPS, Ukrainian and Afghan immigrants who qualify for the protections can visit theU.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services site to apply.
