The United States Supreme Court has ruled against immigrants with temporary residence

The United States Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision on Monday in which it ruled that thousands of people living in the country on humanitarian grounds they will not be able to apply for permanent residence.

The decision was drafted by Judge Elena Kagan, who asserted that federal immigration law prohibits people entering the country illegally (and who now have Temporary Protected Status, or TPS) apply for the green card stay permanently in the country.

The designation applies to people who come from countries devastated by war or disaster. This protects them from eviction and allows them to work legally. There are 400,000 people from 12 countries with TPS status.

The outcome of a case involving a Salvadoran couple residing in the United States since the early 1990s depended on whether the individuals who entered the country illegally and received humanitarian protection they were never “admitted” to the United States under immigration law.

Kagan wrote that they were not. “The TPS program grants foreigners non-immigrant status, but does not admit them. Therefore, granting the TPS does not make an illegal immigrant (…) eligible” for a green card, he said. he writes.

The House of Representatives had already passed a law that would allow GST recipients become permanent residentsKagan pointed out. The bill faces uncertain prospects in the Senate.

The case pitted the Biden administration against immigrant groups who claimed that many people who came to the United States for humanitarian reasons had lived in the country for many years, had given birth to US citizens, and set up in the United States.

In 2001, the United States granted Salvadoran immigrants legal protection to stay in the country after a series of earthquakes in their country of origin.

Residents of 11 other countries enjoy similar protection. They are: Haiti, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

Source: AP