When it axed protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants in the US, the Trump administration made national security concerns the primary justification for the move.
That’s a novel approach to decision-making on the Temporary Protected Status program, which allows immigrants who can’t safely return to designated countries to remain in the US and get legal work authorization. Although TPS has long been in Trump’s crosshairs, that national security-based approach is a departure even from his first term.
It signals that the fate of humanitarian relief options will be based on factors in the US, rather than immigrants’ ...