The U.S. government has officially ended the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of 11 countries– Afghanistan, Cameroon, Haiti, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen– that cannot be challenged anywhere.
The Trump administration’s moves have ended the fate of over 1 million immigrants.
Meanwhile, TPS of El Salvador, Lebanon, Sudan and Ukraine have been extended for about 273,000 immigrants from four countries.
TPS is a temporary legal status given by the U.S. government to people who are already in the United States but cannot safely return to their home countries due to specific countries facing ongoing armed conflict, war, natural or environmental disasters, or extraordinary emergency conditions.
TPS is a lawful immigration status and work authorization created by US Congress in 1990 to provide a clear process for granting humanitarian protection to immigrants from covered countries.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, it finalized the termination of TPS for dozens of countries including Nepal stripping beneficiaries of this legal protection.
According to the report, nearly 7,200 Nepali nationals have held Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in the United States. Originally, around 14,000 to 15,000 Nepalese were initially granted TPS after the devastating April 2015 earthquake.
The TPS striped affected those Nepalese who have been allowed to live and work in the US since 2015. The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has also ordered affected individuals to leave the country immediately or face formal deportation proceedings.
TPS is a federal humanitarian program created in the 1990 Immigration Act. It gives eligible immigrants permission to remain and work in the United States without threat of deportation for periods of six to 18 months. However, TPS designations can be, and usually have been, extended.
Since the program’s inception, nearly 30 countries have received TPS designations, some more than once.
When Trump returned to office in January 2025, 17 countries had this designation. Day by day the administration made it for 13. In June 2026, the Supreme Court of US allowed the administration to terminate TPS designations including for Haiti and Syria saying the affected countries are now safe for immigrants to return to.
However, criticism has come out voicing against the Trump administration’s actions, saying dangerous conditions persist in many of these countries and arguing that the terminations are motivated by racial discrimination.
