NEW YORK (AP) — Maribel Hidalgo ran away from him native venezuelan A year ago, he was walking with difficulty for days across the Darien Pass in Panama with his 1-year-old son, then using the rails to reach the United States via Mexico.

They were living in the United States when the Biden administration announced that Venezuelans would be offered Temporary Protected Status, which allows people already in the United States to legally stay and work if their home country is deemed unsafe. Including people from 17 countries Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan and recently LebanonIt’s getting such relief right now.

But President-elect Donald Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, have vowed mass deportations and suggested they would reduce the use of TPS, which covers more than 1 million immigrants. They highlighted false claims by Haitians living and working legally. Springfield, Ohio, TPS owners eating their neighbors’ pets. Trump also amplified controversial claims by the mayor of Aurora, Colorado, about Venezuelan gangs taking over an apartment complex.

“What Donald Trump is proposing is to end mass parole,” Vance said at a rally in Arizona in October. he said. migration So-called humanitarian parole is also at risk. “We will stop giving lump sum grants to Temporary Protection Status.”

Hidalgo cried as she discussed her situation with a reporter while her son, now 2, slept in a stroller in upstate New York immigrant hotel Where do they live? At least 7.7 million people in Venezuela have fled political violence and economic turmoil, one of the largest displacements worldwide.

“My only hope was TPS,” Hidalgo said. “For example, my concern is that they will send me back after everything I went through with my son to come to this country.”

Venezuelans, along with Haitians and Salvadorans, constitute the largest group of TPS beneficiaries and are most at risk.

of haiti international airport closed This week, after mobs opened fire on a commercial plane that landed in Port-Au-Prince as a new interim prime minister was sworn in. Federal Aviation Administration US airlines banned From going down there for 30 days.

“This creates a lot of concern,” said Editor-in-Chief Vania André. Haiti Times, An online newspaper covering the Haitian diaspora. “Sending thousands of people back to Haiti is not an option. The country is currently ill-equipped to handle widespread gang violence and cannot absorb that many people.”

Appointments made by the Homeland Security secretary provide relief for a period of up to 18 months, but in most cases this period is extended. assignment for El Salvador It ends in March. Appointments for Sudan, Ukraine and Venezuela expire in April. Others end later.

Federal regulations say an appointment can be terminated before its term expires, but that never happened and requires 60 days’ notice.

TPS is similar to the lesser-known Deferred Foreclosure Separation Program that Trump rewarded Venezuela exile As his first presidency drew to a close, he protected 145,000 people from deportation for 18 months.

Attorney Ahilan T. Arulanantham, who successfully challenged Trump’s previous efforts to allow TPS designations for various countries to expire, has no doubt the president-elect will try again.

“It is possible that some in the administration may realize that revoking the employment permits of more than a million people, many of whom have lived in this country for decades, is not good policy and is economically disastrous,” said Arulanantham, who teaches at the university. from the Los Angeles School of Law, California, and helps direct the Center for Immigration Law and Policy “But there’s nothing in Trump’s history to suggest they would care about those kinds of issues.”

Courts have blocked appointments from expiring for Haiti, Sudan, Nicaragua and El Salvador until President Joe Biden’s term. Interior Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas later renewed them.

Arulanantham said he could “absolutely” face another legal challenge depending on what the Trump administration does.

Congress established TPS in 1990, as civil war raged in El Salvador. Members were alarmed to learn that some Salvadorans had been tortured and executed after being deported from the United States. Other names protected people during wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kuwait, after genocidal violence in Rwanda, and after volcanic eruptions in Montserrat, a British territory in the Caribbean. In 1995 and 1997.

Designation is not a path to U.S. permanent residence or citizenship, but applicants may attempt to change their status through other immigration processes.

Advocates are pressing the White House to make a new TPS designation for Nicaraguans before Biden leaves office. Fewer than 3,000 are still covered by temporary protections put in place after Hurricane Mitch devastated the country in 1998. People who fled much later under pressure from President Daniel Ortega’s government do not enjoy the same protection from deportation.

Maria Bilbao of the American Friends Service Committee said “this is a moral obligation” for the Biden administration.

Elena, a 46-year-old Nicaraguan who has been living in the United States illegally for 25 years, hopes Biden acts quickly.

“He should do this now,” said Elena, who lives in Florida and insisted that only her first name be used because she fears deportation. “Not in January. Not in December. Now.”

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Snow reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writer Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed to this report.

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