Haitian citizens tried to get the Supreme Court to uphold their Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation Tuesday, asking the high court to toss the Trump administration’s appeal of lower court rulings blocking its efforts to end TPS for the Caribbean country. The legal battle highlights an ongoing struggle over TPS and the backdoor mass immigration machine more broadly.
People imagine that legal and illegal immigration are separate, distinct things. But there’s a grey area between them that presidents for years have exploited to create a shadow immigration system to circumvent the limits imposed by Congress. This abuse has been going on for years, but the Biden administration dialed it up to 11.
The Trump administration is working to undo the damage caused by its predecessors, but unless Congress changes the law, the next Democrat president will just restart the shadow system.
The two pillars of this parallel, extra-legal immigration system are immigration parole and Temporary Protected Status, or TPS.
Past presidents have used parole to let in foreigners in any number, for any reason, for any length of time they felt like. And TPS has been abused to let illegal aliens already here stay indefinitely. The key to both is that presidential administrations have for decades claimed they can give work permits and Social Security numbers to any illegal aliens they want. And once you’re here with a work permit, it’s a lot harder to send you home, which is the point.
Congress enacted both these programs, but presidents have ignored the tight requirements Congress intended.
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