There's Nothing as Permanent as a Temporary Immigration Status

By Mark Krikorian on September 27, 2012

It should come as no surprise that Haitian illegal aliens have been given an 18-month extension on the Temporary Protected Status they received after the earthquake (and which was later extended to illegals who came after the earthquake). TPS is a statutory tool the executive may use to let illegals stay if they don't qualify for asylum but it's not practical to deport them because their country has suffered a major natural disaster or civil war. TPS is routinely extended, as in the Haitian case, and no one has ever been made to go home because their TPS expired — no one. Liberian illegals who received it more than two decades ago are still here, legally, albeit not as citizens, a matter that is inconsequential to most of them.

This is relevant to the larger question of the president's illegal amnesty for up to 2 million DREAMer illegal aliens — the administration keeps protesting that this is just a temporary reprieve and nothing more, which is why they claim it's not an amnesty. But the experience of TPS makes clear that no one who gets a work card and Social Security number through this DACA amnesty will ever leave — their new card from DHS may have a two-year expiration date on it, but their legal status here is permanent. This is a real, permanent amnesty, not a time-limited reprieve.