The Trump administration on Monday said it would end yet another Temporary Protected Status immigration program, this time for nearly 4,000 immigrants from Myanmar, a country in Southeast Asia engulfed in civil war over the past several years.
The announcement is the latest move by President Trump’s administration to curtail humanitarian immigration programs, which it has argued have been exploited by bad actors and extended for too long, despite the intended temporary nature of the TPS policy. The administration has also said TPS encourages illegal immigration, since some of those who’ve benefited from the policy entered the U.S. illegally.
As part of its immigration crackdown, the Trump administration has moved to revoke TPS protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Syria, Sudan and Venezuela, making many of them eligible for arrest and deportation. Pro-immigrant advocates have called the campaign the largest de-documentation effort in modern U.S. history.
Created by Congress in 1990, TPS has allowed Democratic and Republican administrations to offer temporary work permits and deportation protections to immigrants from countries facing armed conflict, an environmental disaster or another emergency that makes their return unsafe. The program was greatly expanded under former President Joe Biden.
Since 2021, when the country’s military staged a coup, Myanmar has been plagued by armed conflict and political instability. Armed militias scattered throughout the country have fought the country’s military, which has a long history of persecuting minority groups, including members of the Rohingya Muslim community. The United Nations said earlier this year that the military had killed roughly 6,500 civilians as of March and that the violence had displaced more than 3.5 million people.
While it acknowledged that Myanmar “continues to face humanitarian challenges,” the Department of Homeland Security argued in an official notice that ending the country’s TPS program was warranted because there have been “improvements” in “governance and stability” there.
The DHS notice, signed by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, also said that continuing the TPS policy for Myanmar was at odds with national U.S. interests. The department cited concerns about the ability to properly vet people from Myanmar and the risk of them overstaying their visas, and said a number of TPS holders from that country were subject to national security or immigration fraud investigations.
Federal government figures indicate there are currently 3,969 people enrolled in the Myanmar TPS program. Unless a court intervenes, the program will expire in late January.
