Ukraine, Sudan immigrants to retain deportation protections for now

The TPS protections of tens of thousands of Ukrainians and hundreds of Sudanese immigrants were officially slated to terminate on Monday. Immigrants from Ukraine and Sudan enrolled in the Temporary Protected Status policy will be able to live and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation for the time being, even though their protections were set to expire soon, the Department of Homeland Security told CBS News on Sunday. But in statements on Sunday, DHS said final decisions on the fate of the humanitarian immigration programs will "be made at the appropriate time." Until such decisions are announced, DHS added, nationals of Ukraine and Sudan enrolled in the TPS program will "retain protection." The decisions to keep the deportation protections in place, albeit not final, stand in sharp contrast to the Trump administration's broader posture toward TPS programs.

Trump administration officials have routinely denounced TPS as a de facto amnesty policy abused by the Biden administration that encourages illegal immigration and that has been extended too often, despite its temporary nature. Over the past year and a half, the Trump administration, as part of its aggressive immigration crackdown, has revoked the TPS protections of more than 1 million immigrants from over a dozen countries, including Afghanistan, Haiti and Venezuela. The programs for Ukrainian and Sudanese nationals are among a