A Democrat senator is calling on President Joe Biden to extend deportation protections and work permits for illegal aliens in the U.S. to keep them “safe.”
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) made the call ahead of what is expected to be a historic mass deportation campaign by President Donald Trump’s incoming administration.
In a post on X, Cortez Masto said:
“President Biden has the power to protect immigrant families, and I’m calling on him to use it.”
She pointed to the use of Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
TPS is a status administered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that allows nationals who are already living in the U.S. illegally to obtain work permits and be shielded from deportation.
The status grants protection to nationals from countries considered unsafe to return them to.
It has been used broadly by the Biden administration to protect hundreds of thousands of nationals from Haiti and Venezuela, including violent gang members.
Meanwhile, the Biden admin has sought to provide additional safeguards for those protected from deportation via the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
DACA benefited illegal aliens who came to the U.S. as minors.
During a Tuesday appearance on MSNBC, Cortez Masto said:
“They are part of our communities, and what the president can do is just take legal action to extend their TPS statuses.
“But it’s not just our TPS recipients.
“My hope is that the president, in the last two months, also quickly processes our DACA recipients applications.
“We need to make sure our dreamers also have the ability to stay here, continue to be a part of the country that they grew up in.”
The first Trump administration sought to end DACA and reduce the use of TPS.
However, the efforts were unsuccessful.
In Trump’s second term, the administration is expected to either terminate TPS for many nationalities or allow them to expire without renewal.
Cortez Masto highlighted the Trump campaign’s promise to launch a mass deportation campaign as a rationale for the extension of TPS and additional DACA protections.
“They’re going to engage in mass deportation and nobody’s safe,” she said.
“So that’s why I’m asking the administration to come in and take action that they can now to protect some of the immigrant community, TPS recipients and DACA recipients, make sure that at least we’re bringing certainty to them and keeping their families together.”
The Biden admin moved on TPS as recently as October.
The administration both extended and redesignated TPS for Lebanese nationals.
The move meant that new nationals not initially covered could apply for protection.
The DHS estimated that approximately 11,000 Lebanese nationals would be eligible under both TPS and Deferred Enforcement Departure – a similar use of executive authority administered by the president.
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