Miami.
A federal court it blocked the possibility of thousands of immigrants under the official protection status program, mostly Central Americans, gaining access to permanent legal residence (“green card” or green card) in the United States.
In a known bug late on Friday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, indicated that immigrants receiving TPS do not have access to permanent legal residence if they have entered the country illegally, a requirement, in his opinion, essential to obtain the “green card”.
In a ruling in the case Honduran Luis Rodríguez Solórzano Against the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the appeals court dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Central American in his attempt to obtain the “green card.”
According to court documents, the Honduran entered the United States illegally in 1997 and two years later the TPS was designated for its country due to the passage of Hurricane Mitch.
Rodríguez Solórzano requested and received TPS, which allowed him to reside and work legally in the United States, where his wife is a citizen, who applied for a visa on his behalf in 2014.
It was then that USCIS asked the immigrant to provide proof of their legal admission to the country, to which end Rodriguez Solorzano He submitted a brief statement stating that because he had TPS, he could change his status without that evidence, a point that was rejected by the federal agency.
And the appeals court now agreed with USCIS, assuring that the TPS “does not exempt Solórzano from the requirement to be inspected and admitted to the United States,” so that, since “he was never legally admitted, he now cannot. can handle to suit your status“.
With this ruling, the Fifth Circuit agrees to similar decisions of the courts of appeal of the third and eleventh circuits, although it contradicts the opinions of the sixth, ninth and eighth circuits.
These courts of appeal ruled at the time that the TPS eliminates the requirement of border inspection, allowing holders of this immigration protection program to aim for legal residents.
The program TPS grants temporary legal residence with a work permit to citizens of a group of countries designated by the US government as places where natural disasters have occurred or where people flee due to violence.
The program currently covers residents of 10 countries: El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
In the United States, according to data from the Pew Study Center, more than 320,000 people are covered by TPS, including about 195,000 Salvadorans, 57,000 Hondurans, 46,000 Haitians, and 2,500 Nicaraguans.