Hispanic senators press Biden to protect immigrants before leaving White House

The Senate’s three current Hispanic Democrats are calling on President Biden to extend and strengthen humanitarian protections for certain groups of immigrants whose legal status could be stripped by the incoming Trump administration.

In a letter on Wednesday, Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), Alex Padilla (Calif.) and Ben Ray Luján (N.M.) called on Biden to strengthen the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program and to quickly process renewal applications for programs including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

“We write today to urge you to act decisively during the remainder of your term of office to complete important work that will protect long-term immigrant communities and ensure that families are not returned to countries where they would face immense danger,” wrote the senators.

“In addition to supporting strong border security, we are eager to ensure that DACA recipients, TPS holders, and other immigrants who are critical members of our communities and economies are not forgotten during this busy time.”

According to the National Immigration Forum, about 864,000 people are currently protected by TPS, which allows nationals of certain designated countries to live and work in the United States for renewable 18-month periods.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is responsible for those designations, which are granted based on man-made or natural disasters that would render those countries unable to safely receive deportees.

The three lawmakers used Ecuador, Nicaragua and El Salvador as examples of nations with large populations in the United States that could benefit from TPS extensions or designations.

Ecuador is not currently designated under TPS, though some Democrats have been pushing the Biden administration to include the country in the program. There are about 180,000 Salvadoran and around 3,000 Nicaraguan TPS beneficiaries in the United States.

“Worsening crises in countries around the world, including in Ecuador, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, continue to endanger hundreds of thousands of people. Nationals from these three countries cannot return home due to severe circumstances on the ground,” wrote the lawmakers, citing rising violence in Ecuador and government repression in the two Central American countries.

Salvadoran TPS beneficiaries have been in the United States for more than 23 years, with the country’s designation renewed more or less summarily by both Republican and Democratic administration, with the exemption of President-elect Trump’s first term in office, when TPS designations were allowed to expire.

Though Trump’s attempts were frozen in court and reversed by Biden, advocates believe a second Trump administration will try — and potentially succeed — in rendering TPS beneficiaries effectively undocumented and deportable.

The three lawmakers called on Biden to extend, redesignate or designate both existing and new TPS designations to their maximum statutory periods in order to give beneficiaries at least an 18-month runway under the new administration.

“We urge the administration to ensure that those from countries with meritorious cases are granted TPS, allowing these individuals to continue building their lives here and contributing to our country,” they wrote.

The senators also called on Biden to speed up DACA applications and grant advanced parole — travel permits for DACA beneficiaries — before his term is up.

Advanced parole is critical for DACA holders, because by leaving the country and returning with official authorization, many can become eligible to apply for certain work visas that are barred for people who entered the country illegally.

DACA grants work permits, deferral from deportation and optional advanced parole to a group of Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as minors.

Cortez Masto, Padilla and Luján also called on Biden to clarify rules regarding which academic or nonprofit institutions can sponsor H-1B visas year-round. DHS can only grant 65,000 H-1B visas per year, plus 20,000 to applicants with advanced degrees, but many nonprofits are exempt from that cap.

Because applications far exceed the regular caps, work visa recipients are chosen through a lottery system, meaning most eligible applicants have only a 50 percent chance of being chosen.

DACA beneficiaries who have taken advantage of advanced parole to secure legal entry into the country and who have accrued less than six months of unlawful presence in the United States may be eligible for H-1B visas through their employers, giving them a path into full legal status.

But the lottery system and allegations that large tech employers rig that system have complicated that path. Advocates, academic institutions and lawyers have previously called on the Biden administration to clarify which jobs and institutions are eligible for cap exemptions.

“Clearer cap exemption rules may encourage more employers to petition for H-1B visas on behalf of DACA holders, which will ensure qualified DACA recipients have opportunities to gain legal status through their employers,” wrote the senators.