The US government said on Friday it is ending a protected status for migrants from Yemen that had been in place for more than a decade.
Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, announced that Temporary Protected Status (TPS)—first designated for Yemen in September 2015 because of armed conflict—will be terminated 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.
The move affects roughly 1,380 Yemeni nationals in the United States who were living and working there under TPS, which protects people from deportation and allows them to work if their home country faces war, natural disaster or other extraordinary conditions.
“After reviewing conditions in the country and consulting with appropriate US government agencies, I determined that Yemen no longer meets the law’s requirements to be designated for Temporary Protected Status,” Noem said in a statement. “Allowing TPS Yemen beneficiaries to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interest.”
The termination marks the latest in a series of rollbacks of TPS protections under the Trump administration, which has sought to end such protections for several countries. Legal challenges have delayed similar efforts in other cases.
Yemen, one of the world’s poorest countries, has been wracked by civil war since 2014, and the United States State Department continues to advise against travel to the country because of terrorism, unrest, health risks, kidnapping threats and landmines.
Yemeni beneficiaries with no other lawful basis to remain in the United States will have 60 days to depart voluntarily or risk arrest and removal proceedings after the TPS designation officially ends.
