According to files released by Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), a Biden White House memo from the administration’s final days in January 2025, provided to Biden after the 2024 election, outlined options to expand or re-designate Temporary Protected Status in ways that could assist more than 3 million noncitizens, including roughly 1.5 million Guatemalans, 600,000 Ecuadorians, 464,000 Nicaraguans, 455,000 Venezuelans, and smaller groups from Ukraine, Sudan, and Afghanistan.
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) allows eligible nationals of designated countries to remain and work in the United States when conditions in their home country, such as armed conflict, natural disaster, or other extraordinary crises, make return unsafe. Designations typically last 6 to 18 months and may be extended only if the conditions persist. It’s not a path to permanent citizenship and recipients are expected to leave once the designation ends.
The memo, obtained via the Archivist of the United States as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, framed the lame duck team’s actions as a deliberate barrier.
Schmitt stated the document was erroneously dated 2024.
It explicitly discussed rushing TPS extensions, redesignations, and new designations before January 20 in order to protect people from “President-elect Trump’s planned mass deportations,” while noting prior court challenges to Trump’s first-term TPS terminations and anticipated further litigation that could slow or complicate any future rollbacks.
The memorandum indicated that senior staff had received requests from “stakeholders,” including members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Democratic senators such as Dick Durbin, Cory Booker, and Catherine Cortez Masto, along with mayors and advocacy groups. These stakeholders sought the expansions and argued that granting TPS would protect people from President-elect Trump’s planned mass deportations.
Excerpt from the January 2025 White House memo noting requests from stakeholders and arguments about protecting people from President-elect Trump’s planned mass deportations. Released by Sen. Eric Schmitt via X.
The memorandum indicated that senior staff had received requests from “stakeholders,” including members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Democratic senators such as Dick Durbin, Cory Booker, and Catherine Cortez Masto, along with mayors and advocacy groups. These stakeholders sought the expansions and argued that granting TPS would protect people from President-elect Trump’s planned mass deportations.
Schmitt labeled the gudiance an attempt to create a “3.1-million-person deportation shield,” potentially including members of groups like Tren de Aragua, and to “trap” the incoming administration in years of lawsuits. The most significant recommendations involved creating new designations, primarily for Guatemala and Ecuador, that would have covered roughly 2.1 million additional people.
“The most disturbing part,” Schmitt said, was that Biden’s “Senior Advisors” recommended he create 2.1 million new TPS designees in the last few weeks of his presidency, “despite admitting TPS applications take 6 months.” “Luckily, that never happened and we have been deporting Ecuadorians and Guatemalans.”
On January 10, 2025, the Biden administration extended TPS for nearly 1 million people from Venezuela, El Salvador, Ukraine, and Sudan. This limited action occurred in the final days of the administration, shortly after the document was provided to Biden. The much larger expansion outlined in the advisory, especially the new designations for Guatemala and Ecuador that would have covered roughly 2.1 million additional people, was never carried out.
