Biden Makes Bold Move to Protect Migrants Ahead of Trump Takeover

Liam Archacki
·2-min read
President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 2, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Joe Biden has moved to extend deportation protections afforded to migrants from Venezuela, El Salvador, Ukraine, and Sudan ahead of Donald Trump’s impending inauguration, according to reports.

The extension of Temporary Protected Status program, which allows people from countries in upheaval to stay in the U.S., will virtually ensure that more than 1 million people from the three nations can remain in the country until 2026, The New York Times reported.

Trump has threatened to end the program for some countries, including Ukraine, Venezuela, and Haiti, as he did for El Salvador during his first term, but Biden’s move will make it legally very difficult for him to do so.

“Because President Biden has extended protection for the nationals of all these countries, President Trump will be unable to deport these individuals any time soon,” Steve Yale-Loehr, an immigration expert at Cornell Law School, told the Times.

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The protections had been set to expire in the spring, but the extension will keep them in place for an additional 18 months. (Haiti had previously received an extension to 2026.)

The new extensions will protect around 600,000 Venezuelans, 232,000 Salvadorians, 103,000 Ukrainians, and 2,000 Sudanese currently in the U.S., according to Axios and the Times.

Biden’s secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, said in a statement to the Times that the decision was “rooted in careful review and interagency collaboration to ensure those affected by environmental disasters and instability are given the protections they need while continuing to contribute meaningfully to our communities.”

Trump’s platform during his campaign for president centered around limiting avenues for immigration into the United States, with this and other policies framed in visceral terms. He often slammed both Biden and his subsequent Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, for failing to stem the flow of undocumented immigrants into the country.

Trump has vowed to use military force in undertaking mass deportations of people in the U.S. illegally once he becomes president.

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