The United States government has formally terminated Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nationals of South Sudan after more than ten years, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) notice published on Wednesday. With the designation now expired as of Monday, affected South Sudanese nationals living in the U.S. have 60 days to depart the country or risk deportation beginning in early January.
The decision is part of former President Donald Trump’s wider immigration restrictions under the “America First” agenda, which has sought to reduce legal protections for migrants from multiple crisis-affected nations since 2017.
TPS is a humanitarian programme under U.S. federal law that grants protection from deportation, as well as work authorization, for foreign nationals whose countries are considered unsafe due to war, natural disaster, or severe instability.
South Sudan — the world’s youngest nation — has remained fragile since independence in 2011 and experienced a brutal civil war between 2013 and 2018 that left an estimated 400,000 people dead, according to international monitors. Humanitarian agencies, including the U.N.-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), recently warned that food insecurity and malnutrition continue to remain “extremely high” in several regions of the country.
Despite these conditions, DHS said South Sudan no longer meets the requirements for TPS designation. The programme had covered approximately 232 South Sudanese nationals in the U.S., with another 73 applications still pending at the time of the announcement.
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The Trump administration has also moved to end TPS protections for citizens of several other countries — including Syria, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba, and Nicaragua — although some of those decisions are currently being challenged in U.S. courts. In addition, the White House has set refugee admission numbers to the lowest ceiling on record, sharply reducing the number of people allowed to resettle in the U.S. through humanitarian channels.
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Source:Africa Publicity
