Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke faced a deadline Monday to decide whether to renew special designations for Honduras and Nicaragua. | Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo DHS extends protected visa status for Hondurans, but ends it for Nicaraguans

Roughly 86,000 Hondurans will receive a six-month extension of a humanitarian status that allows them to work in the United States, the Homeland Security Department announced Monday night.

But temporary protected status will be discontinued for an estimated 5,300 Nicaraguans after a one-year wind-down period that ends in January 2019.


TPS allows immigrants to remain in the United States if their home country experiences a natural disaster, armed conflict or other extraordinary event while they're here. The temporary designation lasts six to 18 months, but Central American countries enjoyed repeated TPS renewals over the past two decades.

The Trump administration, though, has signaled that it opposes rubber-stamping TPS renewals, and that it will give such requests greater scrutiny.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke faced a deadline Monday to decide whether to renew TPS designations for Honduras and Nicaragua. Both nations first received the designation in 1999, months after Hurricane Mitch carved a trail of destruction across Central America that left thousands dead.

Duke declined to make a decision regarding Honduras, a senior administration official said on a background call with reporters. As a result, the status will automatically renew for six months, a period that will last until July 5.

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The acting secretary concluded she needed more time to make “an appropriately deliberative” decision regarding conditions in Honduras, according to the administration official. The official said further research may lead DHS to terminate the protected status for Honduras after the six-month period ends.

In the case of Nicaragua, the department concluded that conditions in the country are better than before Mitch. The Nicaraguan government did not request a formal extension of the status, according to DHS.

“The acting secretary and the administration are committed to working with Congress to address the impact of Nicaragua’s TPS termination,” the official said. “Only Congress can legislate a permanent solution and provide those in an otherwise perpetually temporary status with a certain future.”

Overall, more than 400,000 immigrants were approved for the status at the end of 2016, according to DHS statistics. Of the 10 countries currently covered by TPS, the Trump administration has thus far announced termination for two — Nicaragua and Sudan.

Then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly granted a six-month extension to nearly 59,000 Haitians in May, but he cautioned that enrollees should use that time to make travel arrangements.

The administration will face another decision by Nov. 23 on Haiti, whose government has petitioned aggressively for an extension. In January, TPS is set to expire for roughly 263,000 people from El Salvador — by far the largest group to benefit from the program.

Unite Here, a labor union that represents workers in the immigrant-heavy hotel and food service sectors, blasted the decision to phase out TPS for Nicaraguans, calling the move “a stain on American history” that will tear families apart.

“Donald Trump has taken hundreds of thousands of dedicated employees who serve our country and turned them into targets for deportation overnight,” said Maria Elena Durazo, the union’s general vice president for immigration, civil rights and diversity.

The number of people currently enrolled in TPS may be be smaller than what statistics provided by DHS say. In a report last week, the Congressional Research Service estimated that in 2017 only 57,000 would re-register for the status from Honduras and 2,550 from Nicaragua. Overall, the report found, about 318,000 would renew.