Markwayne Mullin Reminds Jake Tapper What The ‘T’ In ‘TPS’ Means

Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin clashed Sunday with “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper over Temporary Protected Status for Haitian and Syrian migrants.

The Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration in a 6-3 decision Thursday, allowing the Department of Homeland Security to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) as it applied to migrants from Haiti and Syria. Tapper asked Mullin if that meant over 350,000 people from those countries would be deported.

“[F]irst of all, Temporary Protective Status was never intended to be permanent,” Mullin told Tapper. “And there’s a lot of people that came over here 15, 20 years ago underneath TPS that’s [sic] already changed their status. The whole time these individuals have been here underneath the Temporary Protected Status, they could have applied for a visa. They could have applied for LPR [Lawful Permanent Resident status]. They could have applied for different directions. But the status itself can be ended in its name itself by saying ‘Temporary.’”

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“So, these individuals have a couple of choices: they can try to apply for a permanent residence here, they can apply for a temporary visa if they choose to, or they can choose to go back,” Mullin continued. “And if they want to go back, we will help them with that.”

President George H.W. Bush signed the Immigration Act of 1990 into law, creating TPS in November 1990. TPS was intended for situations involving war or natural disasters where the home countries of illegal immigrants were considered too dangerous for deportation, according to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services website. Following a devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, the Obama administration granted Haitians TPS.

An apparently confused Tapper kept pressing Mullin over the end of TPS.

“If I was talking directly to the individuals with the Temporary Protected Status: either try to fill out the paperwork and be here underneath a permanent status, or we will help you get back to your country,” Mullin said. “We will actually give you a plane ticket, plus roughly $2,100, to help you re-establish when you get there. But Temporary Protected Status, according to the courts and in its name itself, is not permanent status.”

Mullin also explained to Tapper that those filing for permament residency in the United States could not have felony charges or be on social programs.

The Trump administration faced multiple legal battles over its efforts to end TPS; the USCIS website notes eight injunctions from federal district court judges in blue states including Massachusetts, California, and Illinois against earlier efforts to terminate the status. Currently, illegal immigrants from twelve countries are protected from deportation under TPS.