DHS/FOREIGN POLICY/IMMIGRATION/STATE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The Trump administration is set to decide by Monday [11-6-17] whether 86,000 Hondurans and 5,000 Nicaraguans living in the U.S. can remain here under a program that protects immigrants from countries that have suffered major disasters or social upheaval.
The decision could signal the administration’s overall approach to the program, known as Temporary Protected Status, for some 350,000 Central Americans and 58,000 Haitians also living in the U.S., according to data provided by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, which administers the program.
The U.S. government numbers track participants in the program through 2016. However, immigration experts say the numbers are lower because some participants have left the country or gained legal status through other means.
This week, the State Department said conditions that led to citizens of those countries being offered protected status in the U.S. had improved enough to allow Central Americans and Haitians to return home, according to a report in the Washington Post.
No decisions have been made on whether to extend the status, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesman said Friday. A White House spokesman referred questions about the program to Homeland Security. A spokesman for the State Department didn’t confirm the reported assessment and said the department had ‘no comments on internal and interagency deliberation.’ “
-Alicia A. Caldwell, “Trump Administration to Decide Whether to Extend Stay for Hondurans, Nicaraguans,” The Wall Street Journal online, Nov. 4, 2017 05:19pm