Biden administration expected to grant protected immigration status for Nicaraguans

Immigration groups and Florida lawmakers have pushed the Biden administration to redesignate TPS for Nicaraguans living in the U.S., which would allow them to live and work in the country without fear of deportation.

Since taking office, President Joe Biden has leaned on TPS as a tool to grant immigration relief to hundreds of thousands of people as Congress remains in gridlock over fixes to the immigration system. Biden has designated six new countries for TPS since taking office and redesignated six other nations, making an additional 712,000 U.S. immigrants eligible for the status, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Backlogs at the U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services have delayed approvals, but nearly 537,000 people had TPS as of November 2022.

Nicaraguans first received TPS in 1999 after Hurricane Mitch wreaked havoc in Central America. The Temporary Protected Status designation, created by Congress in 1990, helps residents from countries struck by natural disaster, armed conflict or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”

There were 4,250 TPS recipients from the country in 2021, the U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services said in a congressional report.

A record-number of Nicaraguans sought to illegally enter the U.S. last year, as migrants fled political persecution and poor economic conditions in the country. In fiscal year 2022, border officials said there were 163,876 encounters with Nicaraguans.

In a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last month, federal lawmakers pointed to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s political “repression” of protesters, clergy and students.

“The increasingly totalitarian nature of the Ortega-Murillo regime and the brutal political repression Nicaraguans face in their daily lives exacerbate the urgent need for the Biden Administration to redesignate and extend TPS to Nicaragua,” the letter said.

The letter also mentioned the government’s release of over 222 political prisoners last month. The Biden administration orchestrated the relocation of the prisoners to the U.S. through its humanitarian parole program and have granted them this status for two years. Biden announced the parole program —aimed to curb the flow of Nicaraguans, Haitians and Cubans — in January.

That policy forced migrants to apply for asylum from their home country, while expelling those who try to enter the U.S. unlawfully from Mexico. Migrants were only approved if they had a verified sponsor and were allowed to enter the U.S. by air. Border encounters have dropped significantly this year, which Biden officials credit to the new policy.

Last month, the Biden administration announced a proposed rule that will bar some migrants from applying for asylum in the U.S. if they cross the border illegally or fail to first apply for safe harbor in another country. The proposal — which immigrant advocates refer to as the “transit ban” or the “asylum ban” — will take effect on May 11 and serve as its policy solution to the long-awaited end of Title 42, a pandemic-era restriction that lifts the same day.