Washington, DC – Below is a column by Maribel Hastings from America’s Voice en Español translated to English from Spanish. It ran in several Spanish-language media outlets earlier this week:
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the Trump administration’s decision to cancel Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians, but the ruling issued by the highest court in the coming months could affect the program’s 1.3 million beneficiaries from 17 countries. Trump terminated protections for nationals of 13 countries.
At issue is what we have termed the “Trump doctrine,” which consists of revoking immigrants’ legal status in order to detain and deport them, or de-legalization for deportation. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stated that, taken together, the Trump administration’s TPS terminations “reflect the largest ‘de-documentation’ event in U.S. history,” depriving people of their legal status, work permits, and protection from deportation.
TPS grants work permits and protection from deportation to nationals currently in the United States who come from countries at war or that have experienced a natural disaster or other internal conditions that make it unsafe for their nationals to return.
And TPS is just one of the programs Trump has targeted to implement his doctrine of deportation through de-legalization. His aim is not only to target undocumented immigrants—especially those of color—but also to reduce authorized immigration to the United States and eliminate humanitarian programs like TPS. Illinois Democratic Congresswoman Delia Ramírez stated during an America’s Voice conference call that the Trump administration “wants to decide who is American.”
Ramírez added that more than 174 DACA recipients have been deported, another indication that, for Trump, no protections exist under any program.
The Trump administration announced the cancellation of TPS for nationals of 13 countries, including 72,000 Hondurans and 4,000 Nicaraguans who had been protected from deportation and held work permits since 1999. It also terminated TPS for 348,000 Venezuelans, 521,000 Haitians, and more than 200,000 Salvadorans. In addition to the cancellation of humanitarian parole for half a million Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.
Some courts have blocked the government’s actions, which is why the case is now before the Supreme Court to determine the legality of the cancellation.
These are mostly people who have been in the United States for decades, have established families, children, and even U.S. citizen grandchildren, work, own their own businesses, pay taxes, and are a vital part of their communities.
According to a new report by FWD.us, “nearly 1.3 million individuals, as of early 2025 and at the start of the second Trump administration, are Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders.” “TPS holders live with 390,000 U.S. citizen children, and more than 410,000 U.S. citizen adults.”
“TPS holders contribute about $29 billion annually to the U.S. economy, in addition to the payment of $7.8 billion in combined federal, payroll, state, and local taxes,” according to the report.
This is about more than disrupted lives or lost tax revenue—it’s a fundamental challenge to the future of families, communities, and the nation.
According to another report from the Migration Policy Institute, “the result of its broad restrictions across many immigration categories may be drastically lower overall legal immigration levels this year.” “And beyond that, with U.S. birthrates hitting historic lows, the moves threaten to tip the United States into population stagnation—or even decline, a development last seen in 1918, when World War I and a major pandemic coincided.”
A smaller and aging population poses economic challenges for the country.
According to the MPI, some of the measures that have reduced authorized immigration include: “travel bans and restrictions imposed on nationals of 39 countries, pauses in permanent visa issuance affecting 75 countries, new vetting guidelines that have led to a sizable drop in student visa issuance, a $100,000 application fee for H-1B high-skilled workers, and diversion of staff from processing immigration applications to revetting recipients.”
The report adds that the Trump administration’s actions reflect “a worldview that sees immigrants of all statuses as a threat to the country’s very fabric.”
“Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller has extolled the 1924 Immigration Act, which severely curtailed legal immigration for 40 years. He has called for a “moratorium on immigration from third-world countries.” And he has cast immigration as a threat to Americans’ jobs, public safety, and shared culture,” the report adds.
This short-sighted and prejudiced approach threatens severe consequences for American society at every level.
The original Spanish version is here.
