While President Joe Biden hasn't found success with any sweeping immigration reform, his administration has been taking seemingly small actions that do not require support from Congress. One significant action in his first three years in office has been his commitment to expanding eligibility for temporary protected status (TPS). TPS is a designation determined by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), where citizens of specified countries are granted nonimmigrant status and protected from removal proceedings when U.S. officials have determined that conditions in their home country are exceptionally dangerous due to factors such as natural disasters, civil unrest, or war. Under the current administration, TPS eligibility has been expanded for citizens of Somalia, Syria, South Sudan and Yemen, and new TPS designations have been added for citizens of Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Cameroon, Sudan, Ukraine and Venezuela. In total, there are now 16 TPS-designated countries and recent data indicates there are approximately 1.2 million noncitizen immigrants currently residing in the United States who are either already the recipient of, or are eligible for, TPS. Considering the rapid increase in TPS eligibility, practitioners should be familiar with the mechanisms and limitations of TPS to best support their clients who are recipients of or eligible for this designation.

The TPS designation provides for more broad coverage than the similar asylum designation, as it provides blanket eligibility for any citizen of the designated countries rather than requiring the applicant to present evidence of a personal threat to their safety should they return to their home country. However, unlike asylum, TPS only provides for nonimmigrant status and temporary work authorization as long as DHS continues to designate the country and does not provide its own path to permanent residence (a green card) in the United States. While the TPS designation does not provide a direct path to a green card on its own, TPS holders may pursue permanent residence through other means, such as sponsorship by their employer or a U.S. citizen relative. However, in order to adjust status to permanent residence from inside the United States, a TPS beneficiary must still be able to show their underlying eligibility for an adjustment of status. What that means is they must be able to show both that they were inspected and admitted into the United States and that they are maintaining valid nonimmigrant status at the time of their adjustment application. For this reason, an individual who entered the United States without inspection and was later approved for TPS may find themselves ineligible to apply for permanent residence through an adjustment of status, even if they are otherwise eligible for a green card in one category or another.