FLORIDA — President-elect Joe Biden promised to overturn many of President Donald Trump’s executive orders when he takes office, especially the immigration policy changes.
What You Need To Know
- President-elect Joe Biden has promised to change President Donald Trump's immigration policy
- The move could affect 300,000 TPS holders from six countries
- Related: Loss of Temporary Protected Status Worries Florida Immigrants
It’s a move that could affect 300,000 Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders from six countries: Nepal, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Sudan.
On September, a three-panel judge from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 to remove an injunction blocking the Trump administration’s move to phase out TPS for those countries.
“It was painful,” said Belinda Hanzman, a TPS holder from Honduras. “The only hope I had was to change the president.”
“Trump won his first election by promising to crack down dramatically and to some degree on legal immigration,” University of Central Florida political science professor Aubrey Jewett said.
Jewett said President-elect Biden’s policies would include a way to aid TPS holders.
“That would include making it easier for people with TPS status to stay in the country,” he said.
Hanzman said hopes it also means it will be easier to become a U.S. Citizen like her husband and two children, so she she could keep a promise she made to them.
“I’m not going to leave you, no matter what happens I’m not going to leave you because I want to see you grow up,” Hanzman said. “I want to see you get married, I want to see your grandkids. I’m going to fight to the end.”
Hanzman’s TPS expires in January 2021.
Biden said he planned to provide a pathway to citizenship for TPS Holders who’ve lived in the U.S. for a long time.