This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The Trump administration said on Friday that it was ending special immigration protections for about 57,000 Hondurans, adding them to hundreds of thousands of immigrants from other countries battered by violence and natural disasters who are losing permission to be in the United States.

The US Department of Homeland Security’s widely anticipated decision not to renew temporary protected status for Hondurans means an estimated 428,000 people from several countries face rolling deadlines beginning late this year to leave or obtain legal residency in other ways.

'Condemned to misery': Trump set to end protected status for Hondurans Read more

Hondurans will have until 5 January 2020, the homeland security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, said.

Donald Trump – who wants to curtail legal immigration and has been cracking down broadly on illegal immigration – and his supporters note that the protections were never meant to be permanent.

Immigrant advocates decried the move and contend that ending the status will drive people underground who have been establishing roots in the US for years or decades, including having American-born children.

For Hondurans, the program known as TPS has been in place since 1999 after Hurricane Mitch devastated in the Central American country the year before.

The administration says conditions in Honduras have improved, while advocates argue that it still has not fully recovered from the hurricane and is now plagued by rampant violence.

Trump, his opponents argue, is effectively adding tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people to the ranks of those in the US without legal status.

Marta Connor, a 50-year-old union organizer in southern California who has lived in the US for decades and has three American-born children, said before the announcement that she was not leaving, regardless of the administration’s policies.

“One thing I can tell you is I am not going to Honduras,” she said, noting that many of the asylum-seeking migrants in a caravan that recently reached the US-Mexico border are from Honduras. “If they are coming, why am I going over there?”

Around 437,000 immigrants hailing from 10 countries have had temporary protected status, a designation created in 1990 to allow people from countries affected by natural disasters like earthquakes or manmade disasters like war to have a short-term safe haven. Only a few thousand still have that status.

Those with it have generally been able to work and with permission, travel outside the US and return.

While some countries have been taken off the list, others have stayed on it for extended periods, which critics say turns the program into default amnesty.

Under Trump, the Department of Homeland Security has terminated the program for Sudan, Nicaragua, Nepal, Haiti and notably El Salvador, which accounted for more holders of the special status than any other country.

They have been given deadlines to leave or gain legal status if possible, starting in November for Sudan and throughout 2019 for the other countries. Several groups are suing to stay in the US.

The protections have been extended for 6,900 Syrians who already have them, but the administration has said it will not take on new applicants. Decisions are upcoming for South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, which cover fewer than 1,700 people.

Daniel Sharp, legal director at the Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles, said he does not believe most immigrants with the status will leave after setting down roots with US-born children, jobs and homes.

“People don’t want to go back to being undocumented, but I don’t think you are going to see a ton of people returning to their countries of origin,” he said.