The United States does not plan to invoke temporary protected immigration status for Bahamians after the archipelago was battered by a category 5 hurricane.

The TPS program is designed to prevent foreign nationals from being deported back to countries facing civil unrest or the aftermath of a devastating natural disaster.

But on Wednesday a White House official dismissed suggestions that it could be opened to victims of Hurricane Dorian, which devastated the country’s Grand Bahama and Abaco islands.

“The Bahamians impacted by Hurricane Dorian are facing a humanitarian crisis, and the American government, international partners and private organizations continue to support them with aid and services. At this time we do not plan to invoke Temporary Protected Status for those currently in the United States,” the official said.

TPS has also been a target of the White House, which has sought to terminate the program for migrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan.

At least 50 people died when Dorian made landfall, and Bahamian officials said on Wednesday that 2,500 people have been registered as missing in the wake of the disaster. They cautioned the full list of missing has not been checked to see if any of those people are in shelters.

“This list has not yet been checked against government records of who are staying in shelters or who have been evacuated,” the National Emergency Management Agency (Nema) spokesman, Carl Smith, told a press conference. “The database processing is under way.”

While power has returned to much of Grand Bahama, the electrical infrastructure around Marsh Harbour, Abaco’s largest city, was destroyed.

Several hundred people who evacuated the damaged islands are already living in emergency tents around Nassau, the capital. Many more are in gymnasia and other temporary shelters.

Officials are planning to erect two “tent city” relief centers capable of housing about 4,000 people around hard-hit Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco Island, said John Michael-Clark, co-chairman of the Bahamas disaster relief and reconstruction committee.

The two centers, one to the north of the town, the other to the south, will provide temporary housing to people who wish to rebuild their homes on the island, he said. Officials estimated that 90% of the homes and buildings in Marsh Harbour were damaged or destroyed by Dorian’s top sustained winds of 185mph.

About 15,000 people are still in need of shelter or food, according to the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency. About 5,000 have been evacuated from the hardest-hit islands, which include Abaco, and another 6,000 to 7,000 remain there, according to a report shared by the UN World Food Program on Wednesday.