Wall Street Journal
By Alicia A. Caldwell and Laura Meckler
November 09, 2017
The White House lost an internal debate this week over whether to extend humanitarian protections for immigrants living in the U.S., when the acting chief of the Department of Homeland Security refused to end them, people familiar with the deliberations said.
At issue is the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program, which gives safe harbor in the U.S. to people from a range of countries affected by natural disasters and other strife.
Under past administrations, the programs for multiple countries were routinely renewed. For three Central American countries, the renewals have enabled hundreds of thousands of people to live in the U.S. with the government’s permission for the better part of two decades.
White House officials were pushing the Department of Homeland Security to announce this week that they were ending those protections for Honduras and Nicaragua, people familiar with the discussions said.
On Monday, the day the decision was due, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly repeatedly telephoned acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke and pressed her to end both programs immediately, according to one of the people familiar with the discussions. Homeland Security adviser Tom Bossert pressed for the same over the weekend, this person said.
A White House official said the point of Mr. Kelly’s call was to get Ms. Duke to make a decision, saying she was delaying too long.
“As with many issues, there were a variety of views inside the administration on a policy. The acting secretary took those views and advice [on] the path forward for TPS and made her decision based on the law,” said Jonathan Hoffman, spokesman for Homeland Security.
Mr. Hoffman said Mr. Kelly was returning a call from Ms. Duke when they discussed the matter and that it wasn’t unusual for them to speak ahead of a decision.
The Trump administration already had signaled it wanted the protections canceled as they came up for review. Mr. Kelly, when he was Homeland Security secretary, offered a limited extension of the same protective status for Haitians earlier this year and advised immigrants protected by the program to prepare to leave. He also signaled that protections for people from other nations were likely to end, as well.
The next round of decisions for at least two Central American countries rested with his replacement, Ms. Duke, who refused to succumb to White House pressure, two people familiar with the matter said.
“She’s not the most popular person over at the White House,” said one person familiar with the debate.
The other person said, “The White House came down on her really hard” before and after the decisions were announced.
Immigrant advocates responded to news of the White House pressure with alarm, saying there should be no political influence over the upcoming decisions about other protective programs.
“Those DHS decisions should be based on the facts, based on the statutes, but not based on undue political interference,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of the advocacy group America’s Voice.
On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the protected status for Nicaragua would end, but the roughly 5,000 immigrants in the U.S. under the program would have until January 2019 to either leave the country or apply for another immigration status if they are eligible.
Ms. Duke concluded conditions in that country were better than they were in 1998, when Hurricane Mitch ravaged the region, according to a statement from Homeland Security.
On Honduras, Ms. Duke opted not to make a decision, a move that automatically extends the program’s protections for another six months. The new secretary will have to decide the fate of that program next spring.
The Department of Homeland Security said Ms. Duke didn’t make a decision on that country because she wanted more time to assess country conditions.
White House officials wanted both programs to end swiftly, two people familiar with the deliberations said.
A similar dynamic is at play on decisions regarding El Salvador and Haiti, one of the people familiar with the discussion said. A decision on Haiti is due later this month, and the administration must decide the future of protected status for El Salvador by early January.
Ms. Duke was the department’s deputy secretary before being elevated to the top post this summer after Mr. Kelly left to become President Donald Trump’s chief of staff. The people familiar with the internal debate on TPS said Ms. Duke is expected to leave the agency when a permanent successor is approved by the Senate. Mr. Hoffman, however, said he knew of no plans for Ms. Duke to leave.
Ms. Duke wasn’t considered for the permanent job and instead, Mr. Trump nominated Kirstjen Nielsen, Mr. Kelly’s chief of staff at Homeland Security, to the post last month.
Ms. Nielsen appeared before the Senate Homeland Security committee Wednesday. Her nomination caused some blowback from conservatives who have worried she won’t be tough enough on immigration enforcement, and from some Democrats worried about her lack of management experience. A vote on her nomination, scheduled for Thursday, was postponed until at least Monday to give Ms. Nielsen time to respond to 197 questions submitted by senators after the hearing.
Monday’s split decisions on Honduras and Nicaragua came as a surprise to immigration advocates, who had anticipated the programs ending. In May, after signaling a phaseout of protections for Haitians, Mr. Kelly suggested that other longstanding temporary protected status designations could end.
“The message is: By definition, TPS is temporary,” he said at the time.
Mr. Trump has made cracking down on illegal immigration and curbing legal immigration priorities of his administration.
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