Last Friday, Congressional Democrats sent out a petition calling on the president to grant mass amnesty to over a million illegal aliens from Central America, citing the region’s high crime rates and the dangers faced by potential deportees. Instead of asking the president to use his purported mass deferred action authority, Democrats are asking he grant the illegal aliens so-called Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a similar, albeit statute-based, program created by Congress in 1990. But similar to his previous blanket amnesties, using TPS in this situation would be unprecedented and legally questionable.
As its name implies, TPS was created to ‘temporarily’ stall the deportation of illegal aliens whose home country is ravaged by war or natural disaster. It initially only applied to then-war-torn El Salvador; however, the program’s since grown to include 11 other countries. And although the relief’s supposed to be “temporary,” TPS-grants have been consistently renewed by DHS even when the problems back home have long since subsided.
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