How To Quality For Temporary Protected Status As An Immigrant In The USA

Temporary Protected Status, also called TPS, is a valuable option for those immigrants who meet all the standards for this status. This is a temporary status, and has to be renewed quite often, within months or a year or two. However, for those in the USA without any other status options, this status is highly valuable for providing safety from immigration removal proceedings and a work permission card, which allows the TPS holder to work and study in the USA.

TPS is only available to immigrants from a country designated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as eligible for TPS. This designation is specific to both a country and a time period. TPS application periods are only open at certain times for applicants from a country, so staying organized and understanding both the time limits and the country limits is essential for success.

USCIS Overview Of Eligibility Guidelines:

To be eligible for TPS, you must:

• Be a national of a country designated for TPS, or a person without nationality who last habitually resided in the designated country;
• File during the open initial registration or re-registration period, or you meet the requirements for late initial filing during any extension of your country’s TPS designation;
• Have been continuously physically present (CPP) in the United States since the effective date of the most recent designation date of your country; and
• Have been continuously residing (CR) in the United States since the date specified for your country. The law allows an exception to the continuous physical presence and continuous residence requirements for brief, casual and innocent departures from the United States. When you apply or re-register for TPS, you must inform USCIS of all absences from the United States since the CPP and CR dates. USCIS will determine whether the exception applies in your case.

You may NOT be eligible for TPS or to maintain your existing TPS if you:

• Have been convicted of any felony or two or more misdemeanors committed in the United States;
• Are found inadmissible as an immigrant under applicable grounds in INA section 212(a), including non-waivable criminal and security-related grounds;
• Are subject to any of the mandatory bars to asylum. These include, but are not limited to, participating in the persecution of another individual or engaging in or inciting terrorist activity;
• Fail to meet the continuous physical presence and continuous residence in the United States requirements;
• Fail to meet initial or late initial TPS registration requirements; or
• If granted TPS, you fail to re-register for TPS, as required, without good cause.

How To Apply?

The applicant must turn in an I-821 application, along with an I-765 work permission application. The applicant must prove that they are a national of a TPS-qualifying country, prove when they entered the USA, and prove that they have continued to reside in the USA since entry.

The successful TPS applicant will get a work permission card, and a social security number. However, they need to be very attentive to the expiration date of TPS eligibility, and very attentive to following the guidelines for extension periods that might open up to allow renewal filings.