A recently uncovered memo from the Biden White House, dated January 2025, reveals plans to expand Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to more than 3 million noncitizens. The memo acknowledges that previous court challenges had blocked many of former President Donald Trump's attempts to terminate TPS protections.

TPS is designed to protect foreign nationals from countries experiencing crises such as political unrest or natural disasters. While the Trump administration sought to end TPS for groups including Haitians, Nepalese, Salvadorans, and Sudanese, lawsuits from migrant advocates have largely prevented these efforts.

Senator Eric Schmitt, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, said he obtained the memo from Archivist of the United States Edward Forst. Schmitt stated, "Biden tried to turn TPS into a 3.1-million-person deportation shield, protect Tren de Aragua members, and trap President Trump in years of litigation," adding that this move betrayed the "will of the people" who voted out liberal Democrats in the previous election.

The memo includes a chart estimating new TPS eligibility for approximately 1.5 million Guatemalans, 600,000 Ecuadorians, 464,000 Nicaraguans, 455,000 Venezuelans, and smaller groups from Ukraine, Sudan, and Afghanistan, totaling over 3.1 million people.

Schmitt also noted that one week after the memo, President Biden extended TPS protections to nearly 1 million noncitizens, describing the action as a "concrete, mass-migration action."

The memo further discusses that prior federal litigation during the Trump administration successfully halted efforts to terminate TPS, mainly due to a failure to produce sufficient factual records supporting termination—a gap the Biden administration aimed to address.

While the memo outlines these expansive plans, Schmitt remarked, "Luckily, that never happened and we have been deporting Ecuadorians and Guatemalans."

Sources