Unanimous SCOTUS Immigration Ruling on TPS: Read It For Yourself
A Unanimous SCOTUS immigration ruling finds that those that came illegally to America but were granted TPS status cannot apply for permanent residency.
A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that thousands of people living in the U.S. for humanitarian reasons are ineligible to apply to become permanent residents.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court that federal immigration law prohibits people who entered the country illegally and now have Temporary Protected Status from seeking “green cards” to remain in the country permanently.
The designation applies to people who come from countries ravaged by war or disaster. It protects them from deportation and allows them to work legally. There are 400,000 people from 12 countries with TPS status.
The outcome in a case involving a couple from El Salvador who have been in the U.S. since the early 1990s turned on whether people who entered the country illegally and were given humanitarian protections were ever “admitted” into the United States under immigration law.
Kagan wrote that they were not. “The TPS program gives foreign nationals nonimmigrant status, but it does not admit them. So the conferral of TPS does not make an unlawful entrant…eligible” for a green card, she wrote.
The House of Representatives already has passed legislation that would make it possible for TPS recipients to become permanent residents, Kagan noted. The bill faces uncertain prospects in the Senate.
The case pitted the Biden administration against immigrant groups that argued many people who came to the U.S. for humanitarian reasons have lived in the country for many years, given birth to American citizens and put down roots in the U.S.
In 2001, the U.S. gave Salvadoran migrants legal protection to remain in the U.S. after a series of earthquakes in their home country.
People from 11 other countries are similarly protected. They are: Haiti, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.
Monday’s decision does not affect immigrants with TPS who initially entered the U.S. legally and then, say, overstayed their visa, Kagan noted. Because those people were legally admitted to the country and later were given humanitarian protections, they can seek to become permanent residents.
Read the entire SCOTUS Immigration Ruling here:
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This ruling is important because it deals with a very technical issue when it comes to immigration. In order to adjust status, that is be able to get your green card in the United States rather than having to consular process, you need to have, among other things, a proper admission into the United States. What is and is not a proper admission is not always easier to determine. The case law on the subject tends to be a lot more broad than actual policy. The issue in this case is whether the grant of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) constituted an admission into the United States. Some circuits held yes , others no, and the Supreme Court unanimously held no. The 9-0 nature of the decision probably means they got the law right.
Another factor is that you need to be in continuous lawful status in order to adjust status but there is one big exception to this. Beneficiaries of family petitions that fall in the Immediate Relative category, that is USC spouses or adult USC children petitioning for their parents, do not have to be in continual legal status to get their green card in the United States. So if somebody was granted TPS but entered unlawfully, meaning they basically entered without inspection but you can also enter through a proper border and enter unlawfully, but TPS counts as an admission than they can adjust status through an immediate relative petition without having to leave and consular process.Report