Dem Senator Urges Biden To Extend Protections for Illegal Immigrants Before Trump Admin

A Democratic senator is calling on the Biden administration to extend deportation protections and work permits for illegal immigrants in the U.S., ahead of what is expected to be a historic mass deportation campaign by the incoming Trump administration.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said in a post on X that “President Biden has the power to protect immigrant families, and I’m calling on him to use it.”

She pointed to the use of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which is a status administered by the Department of Homeland Security that allows nationals who are living in the U.S. already to obtain work permits and be shielded from deportation.

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Meanwhile, the Biden administration has sought to provide additional safeguards for those protected from deportation via the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. That program benefited illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors.

“They are part of our communities, and what the president can do is just take legal action to extend their TPS statuses,” Cortez Masto said Tuesday on MSNBC. “But it’s not just our TPS recipients. My hope is that the president, in the last two months, also quickly processes our DACA recipients applications. {snip}”

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“They’re going to engage in mass deportation and nobody’s safe,” she said. {snip}

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