“It’s a really devastating day for hundreds of thousands of people who have lived and worked in the country lawfully for decades,” said Tom Jawetz, vice president for immigration policy at the Center for American Progress.
“But it’s not the end of the line for them,” Jawetz said. “There will be additional litigation, and ultimately the fate of these people may be decided by the outcome of the November election.”
Proponents of limits on immigration hailed the decision.
“The 9th Circuit affirmed two clear aspects of TPS,” said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said in a statement. “The first is that the T in TPS stands for temporary and that it is not intended, nor should it be, a backdoor to permanent residency.”
He said the decision also made it clear that the government had discretion to determine when it was safe for immigrants given temporary protections to return home. For countries such as El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan, he said, “the crises that triggered the TPS designation have long since passed.”
