The Trump administration is ending deportation protections for more than a thousand migrants from Yemen, the latest blow to the decades-old humanitarian program that has allowed hundreds of thousands of people fleeing crisis in their home countries to live and work in the United States.
“After reviewing conditions in the country and consulting with appropriate U.S. government agencies, I determined that Yemen no longer meets the law’s requirements to be designated for Temporary Protected Status,” Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said in a statement on Friday, referring to the humanitarian program. The move comes one month after a group of separatists seized chunks of territory from the Yemeni government, escalating the conflict there.
“Allowing T.P.S. Yemen beneficiaries to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interest,” Ms. Noem said. “T.P.S. was designed to be temporary, and this administration is returning T.P.S. to its original temporary intent.”
Yemen’s removal from the program was the latest move in President Trump’s immigration crackdown as he seeks to expand the pool of migrants who could be expelled from the United States.
He has long targeted the T.P.S. program, which has allowed citizens of crisis-plagued countries to stay in the United States for up to 18 months. The protection can be renewed by the federal government, a practice that has become routine for nations where crises have spanned many years.
The Department of Homeland Security designated Yemen for the program in 2015 after conflict broke out in the country between Houthi rebels, an Iran-backed militia, and Saudi Arabia, which backs Yemen’s government.
Yemen, the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, has been mired ever since in a civil war that has created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. More than 4 million people have been displaced because of the conflict, according to Human Rights Watch.
Since 2015, the Department of Homeland Security had extended Yemen’s T.P.S. designation every 18 months. The first Trump administration twice extended protections for Yemeni nationals.
As of last year, about 1,380 Yemeni nationals in the United States held the protected status.
The Trump administration’s efforts to end T.P.S. for more than one million foreign nationals have prompted a wave of legal challenges.
Recently, federal judges have ruled against the Trump administration in cases pertaining to about 600,000 Venezuelans and more than 350,000 Haitians. But on Monday, a federal appeals court allowed the Trump administration to move forward with ending protections for more than 60,000 migrants from Nepal, Honduras and Nicaragua.
The ongoing court battles have left many T.P.S. recipients scrambling to figure out other pathways to legal residency, such as applying for asylum or work visas.
Ashley Ahn covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
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