Three decades isn’t temporary.
Via Star Tribune:
The Trump administration said it will extend temporary legal protections for Somalis who live in the United States, saving hundreds of people from the prospect of deportation back to the war-ravaged country.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on Thursday announced an 18-month extension of temporary legal status for approximately 500 Somalis who now live and work in the United States, citing the ongoing armed conflict and “extraordinary and temporary conditions” in the country.
The decision to extend the designation saves many Somali families — including some who have lived and worked here for nearly three decades — from having to make an agonizing decision over whether to stay and risk deportation. Immigration advocates said that many families facing the loss of their protected status would have been forced to choose between staying in this country illegally, like the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, or returning to a homeland where armed conflict persists and large swaths of the nation are controlled by the Somali Islamic terror group Al-Shabaab.
Temporary protected status, known as TPS, was created by Congress to provide haven for immigrants who have fled countries wracked by violence, natural disasters and other forms of civil strife that prevent their safe return.
The extension permits current Somali TPS beneficiaries to re-register for TPS and remain in the United States with work authorization through March 17, 2020, according to an announcement from the Department of Homeland Security.
The protections were first extended to Somalia in 1991 under President George H.W. Bush in response to a clan-driven civil war that followed the collapse of the authoritarian Siad Barre regime. The designation has been extended 22 times since then, shielding many Somalis from deportation and enabling them to build families and businesses here.
In January of 2017, the Department of Homeland Security said Somalia had more than 1.1 million displaced residents as a result of ongoing armed conflict and a severe drought, as well as some of the highest malnutrition rates in the world. “Somalia continues to experience a complex protracted emergency that is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world,” the federal agency said last year in extending the designation.
A decision to end temporary protections for Somalis, advocates had warned, would have torn apart many families who have been living and working in the country legally for years. That’s because many TPS holders are married to legal immigrants and have children who are U.S. citizens.