US President Donald Trump’s administration said on Friday that it would end temporary protections for immigrants in the US from Honduras on Jan. 5, 2020, leaving potentially 57,000 people vulnerable to deportation.
It is the latest in a series of decisions by Trump to shut down temporary protected status (TPS) granted to immigrants after natural disasters or violent conflicts that would prevent them from safely returning to their home countries.
The government of Honduras said on Friday that it “profoundly regrets the cancelation of the program” and pledged free legal and consular support for Hondurans living in the US.
Marlon Tabora, the Honduran ambassador to the US, said the conditions did not exist in the Central American country to deal with the repatriation of tens of thousands of people.
“These families have lived in the US for 20 years and re-integrating them into the country will not be easy if they decide to return,” he said.
After El Salvador, Hondurans are the second-largest nationality with TPS to lose their status, which was granted to the country in 1999 following the devastation of Hurricane Mitch.
The government had conducted a review and found “conditions in Honduras that resulted from the hurricane have notably improved,” it said.
The 18-month timeline to end the program would allow “individuals with TPS to arrange for their departure or to seek an alternative lawful immigration,” the US Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
The Boston-based Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice said later on Friday that it would amend a legal complaint filed in February to include the Hondurans affected.
The original complaint challenged the Trump administration’s decision to terminate a similar program protecting immigrants from Haiti and El Salvador.
The Trump administration in January ended TPS classification for 200,000 Salvadorans, who had been allowed to live and work in the US since 2001. Their status is to expire next year.
The administration also recently ended the program for Nepal.
TPS critics complain that repeated extensions in six to 18-month increments of the status, sometimes for decades, has given beneficiaries de facto residency in the US.
Most of the other countries that have come up for TPS review have had the status terminated, except for Syria, which is in the midst of a devastating war.
Karen Valladares, the director of the National Forum for Migration, a non-governmental organization in Honduras, said people continue to leave because of gang and drug-related violence and lack of economic opportunities.
“There have not been concrete improvements in the security situation,” Valladares said, adding that, in some ways, “Honduras is worse off than when they left.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia