All too often when something goes wrong, badly wrong, somewhere in the world, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) creates one of those always-permanent Temporary Protected Status arrangements.
Be it an earthquake in Haiti or a civil war in South Sudan, DHS grants an effective amnesty to everyone from that nation in the United States at the time, legal or illegal. These "temporary" statuses are never ended, just rolled over every 18 months.
Did the very real Ebola crisis in West Africa create another TPS?
Not so far, and DHS has reacted with a new set of rulings that are far more sensible than TPS. These rulings, mostly very temporary in nature do not even have a name, but Interpreter Releases, in its August 25 edition calls them "immigration relief measures".
One of these, the "change or extension of nonimmigrant status even if the request is filed after the authorized period of admission has expired" has a whiff of amnesty about it, but the other measures do not. They are primarily arrangements for expedited decisions on various applications and extensions of "certain grants of parole". It appears that fee waivers will be considered, perhaps more generously than usual.
That's it. No employment authorization documents, no temporary legal status for illegals. In addition, I suspect that ICE at this time is postponing any deportations to these nations, but that was not mentioned in the article.
The new arrangements are for people from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.