400K Temporary Status Immigrants in U.S. Ineligible to Become Permanent Citizens, SCOTUS Rules

The United States Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the 400,000 immigrants in the U.S. with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) are ineligible to apply to become citizens, the Associated Press reported.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote that federal immigration laws prohibit people who entered the country illegally and have TPS from seeking green cards that would make them permanent residents.

The ruling applies to people who came from countries ravaged by war or disaster. Those with TPS are still protected from deportation and can still work legally.

This is a breaking news story. For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.

The outcome in a case involving a couple from El Salvador who have been in the U.S. since the early 1990s turned on whether people who entered the country illegally and were given humanitarian protections were ever "admitted" into the United States under immigration law.

Kagan wrote that they were not. "The TPS program gives foreign nationals nonimmigrant status, but it does not admit them. So the conferral of TPS does not make an unlawful entrant...eligible" for a green card, she wrote.

The House of Representatives already has passed legislation that would make it make possible for TPS recipients to become permanent residents, Kagan noted. The bill faces uncertain prospects in the Senate.

The case pitted the Biden administration against immigrant groups that argued many people who came to the U.S. for humanitarian reasons have lived in the country for many years, given birth to American citizens and put down roots in the U.S.

In 2001, the U.S. gave Salvadoran migrants legal protection to remain in the U.S. after a series of earthquakes in their home country.

People from 11 other countries are similarly protected. They are: Haiti, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.