The Department of Homeland Security says starting Tuesday, people from Sudan and Ukraine can apply for Temporary Protected Status, or TPS.
TPS is a temporary status offered to people from a handful of countries where war, natural disaster and other crises have made it unsafe to return. It doesn't offer a pathway to citizenship, and recipients need to be in the U.S. at a certain date to be eligible.
DHS announced both designations were upcoming in March, but originally said Ukrainians would had to have been in the U.S. by the first of that month to apply.
That deadline was extended Monday to April 11. The agency says it expects around 60,000 Ukrainians will be eligible, including some who were able to bypass pandemic-related asylum restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border in recent weeks.
The Sudanese designation still carries a March 1 cut-off. It’s expected to affect some 3,000 Sudanese, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
On Friday, rights activists also celebrated another TPS announcement for Cameroonians. In a statement that day, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the status would be made available to Cameroonians already in the U.S. because of the ongoing armed conflict in their country. The designation will last for 18 months.
