Trump's Trials - Immigrants with Temporary Protected Status fear deportation as Trump returns

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

With President-elect Donald Trump returning to the White House next month, some are worried their protected status could soon end. Trump has vowed a massive deportation campaign and sharp immigration restrictions, including slashing the TPS program, as he tried to do during his first term at the White House. Support NPR and hear every episode sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I'm Scott Detro and you're listening to Trump's Terms from NPR. We will have really great strong people. Donald Trump is unstoppable. Make America healthy again. The future is going to be amazing. Each episode we bring you NPR's latest coverage of the incoming Trump administration and the people who will run it. Cabinet secretaries,

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Listen to The Indicator, the daily economics podcast from NPR. I must smile at it. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to sharpen immigration restrictions and carry out a massive deportation campaign. One program that's threatened is temporary protected status. It currently shields nearly 900,000 people who don't have permanent legal status in the United States. For member station KQED in San Francisco, Tyiki Hendrix spoke with one of them, a nurse

from Ukraine. On the San Francisco Bay waterfront in the city of Richmond, Oksana Demidenko walks through the Rosie the Riveter Memorial Park. Rosie the Riveter expired people in Ukraine. Next to her is Mary Woegas, the sponsor who helped her come to the United States. It is pretty amazing. When Demidenko fled the Russian bombardment two years ago, Wogus invited her and her four cats to come live with her. Demidenko says she feels welcome here and safe. She came on a parole

program, then got temporary protected status, or TPS. It's protection from deportation for immigrants who are in the U.S. when their home country is wracked by war or natural disaster. And it includes a work permit. Demidenko found a job in a state public health lab after learning from Wogus that California has a shortage of laboratory scientists. I told her a little bit about it and she said, when I was a little girl, I would go to my grandfather's lab and I love labs.

Demidenko is one of nearly 900,000 people from 16 countries who currently have temporary protected status. The program was created by Congress in 1990, initially for people from El Salvador. Now, with Trump returning to the White House, Demidenko is afraid the welcome could end for her and 50,000 other Ukrainians on TPS. Everybody now, we don't know we have future or not.

On the campaign trail, Trump said he would revoke TPS for Haitians and deport them. The Trump transition team did not respond to NPR's requests for comment. But Trump's border czar pick, Tom Homan, recently told Cleveland Talk radio host Bob France the government needs to go hard on ending TPS designations and sending people back. Temporary protective status is the approval of the Secretary of Homeland Security. That could end tomorrow. The president can't get rid of the TPS law without Congress, but can revoke TPS status for individual countries. Still, Theresa Cardinal Brown, an immigration analyst with the Bipartisan

Policy Center, says returning people to shattered countries is challenging. What capacity do those countries have to accept those repatriations and reintegrate those people, I think, about a place like Haiti? In Trump's first term, he tried to end TPS for several countries, but he was blocked in the courts. Krista Ramos was 14 when she and her mom, a TPS holder from El Salvador, became named plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits challenging Trump's plan.

I catch up with Ramos on the sidelines at her brother's soccer practice. Throughout my high school, like, that was a stress that was on me and so many children like me, that we could lose our parents at any point. She's 20 now, studying politics at the University of San Francisco, and angry that TPS is at risk again. But I want to turn that anger into change to fight. Out on the Richmond waterfront, Demidenko says she makes soap as a hobby and is thinking a soap business could be a backup if she loses her work permit.

And I'm going to start my business because I'm like, maybe it's give me a chance. If Trump doesn't extend TPS for Ukraine, it will expire in April and Demidenko's options will shrink. For NPR News, I'm Taiki Hendricks in Richmond, California. And before we wrap up, a thank you to our NPR Plus supporters who hear each show without sponsored messages and of course who help protect independent journalism. If you are not a supporter yet, you can visit plus.npr.org to find out how you can get a ton of podcast perks across dozens of NPR shows, like bonus episodes, exclusive merchandise, and more.

Again, that's plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detro. Thanks for listening to Trump's Terms from NPR.