A weblog about the business of immigrant work: employment, compensation, legal protections, education, mobility, and public policy.
As of February 16, 2022, there were an estimated 354,625 people with Temporary Protected Status living in the United States. In addition, about 145,800 people are eligible for TPS under three designations announced by the Biden administration in March and April of 2022 (Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Cameroon). Go here.
TPS, created in the Immigration Act of 1990, gives temporary immigration status provided to nationals of specifically designated countries that are confronting an ongoing armed conflict, environmental disaster, or extraordinary and temporary conditions. Examples of conditions for which TPS can be activated: civil war, earthquake, hurricane, or epidemic. It provides a work permit and stay of deportation to foreign nationals from those countries who are in the United States at the time the U.S. government makes the designation. It does not provide access to Green card. The person must remain continuously in the U.S. for coverage (except by permission of DHS). States can elect to allow or deny certain public benefits. At the end of the TPS, the person returns to their prior immigration status. The Secretary of Homeland Security makes the designation.
A TPS designation can be made for 6, 12, or 18 months at a time. The law does not define the term “temporary.” Countries for which its citizens in the U.S. may be covered by TPS as of June 2022: Afghanistan, Cameroon, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen. Liberia and Hong Kong are included in a special way. About 11 countries have been given TPS status and were discontinued.
On March 3, 2022, Ukraine nationals were granted TPS status for 18 months. This covers 59,600 persons. Afghanistan nationals were covered for TPS for an 18-month period, beginning on May 20, 2022. DHS estimated this covers 74,500 persons.
The opinion of Princeton economist Leah Boustan
….the pattern whereby the kids of poor and working-class immigrants do better than their American counterparts, is true both today and in the past. The children of poor Irish or Italian immigrant parents outperformed the children of poor US-born parents in the early 20th century; the same is true of the children of immigrants today.
In the past: We are able to delve into the reasons for this immigrant advantage in the past in great detail, and we find that the single most important factor is geography. Immigrants tended to settle in dynamic cities that provided opportunities both for themselves and for their kids. So, in the past, this meant avoiding Southern states, which were primarily agricultural and cotton-growing at the time, and – outside of the South – moving to cities more than to rural areas. If you think about it, it makes sense: immigrants have already left home, often in pursuit of economic opportunity, so once they move to the US they are more willing to go where the opportunities are.
Today: Geography still matters a lot today, but not as much as in the past. Instead, we suspect that educational differences between groups matter today. Think about a Chinese or Indian immigrant who doesn’t earn very much, say working in a restaurant or a hotel or in childcare. In some cases, the immigrant him or herself arrived in the US with an education – even a college degree – but has a hard time finding work in their chosen profession. Despite the fact that these immigrant families do not have many financial resources, they can pass along educational advantages to their children.
From Noah Smith substack blog
Here is my posting on the remarkable upward mobility of children of poor Asian mothers.
Children do better than their parents. Here.