U.S. to end protected status for Nepalese immigrants

The Trump administration on Thursday said it will end the special immigration status that granted protection to some 9,000 Nepalese living in the United States after a 2015 earthquake rocked their homeland. The Department of Homeland Security announcement gives the immigrants until June 2019 either to leave the country or change their immigration status. The Obama administration granted the immigrants temporary protected status (TPS) after the earthquake killed more than 8,000 people. Officials extended the status for another 18 months in October 2016. “The disruption of living conditions in Nepal from the April 2015 earthquake and subsequent aftershocks that served as the basis for its TPS designation have decreased to a degree that they should no longer be regarded as substantial,” a statement from DHS noted. The United States first launched the status program in 1990 to assist foreign citizens facing war and natural disasters. The Trump administration recently ended designations for several other countries, including Nicaragua and Haiti, saying the conditions that initially qualified them for the special immigration status no longer exist.