by Alex Meneses Miyashita
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced May 2 it would extend Temporary Protected Status to more than 300,000 Central Americans for an additional 18 months.
The extension will apply to some 230,000 Salvadorians, 78,000 Hondurans end 4,000 Nicaraguans who currently live in the country under the status.
The TPS for Hondurans and Nicaraguans was set to expire in July and for Salvadorans in September.
The status, part of the Immigration Act of 1990, is granted to foreign nationals in the country who cannot return to their countries because of war or natural disasters.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which killed more than 12,000 people in Central America, thousands of undocumented Honduran end Nicaraguan immigrants became eligible for TPS.
Salvadorans gained TPS following a series of devastating earthquakes in their country in 2001 that affected 1.6 million people.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director Emilio Gonzalez said, “Although Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador have made significant progress in their recovery and rebuilding efforts, each country continues to face social and economic challenges in their efforts to restore their nations to normalcy.”
Re-registration information will be posted at a later date at www.uscis.gov.
For more information, contact the USCIS National Customer Information Service Center, (80C) 375-5283.
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