Supreme Court rules against immigrants with temporary protected status

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled unanimously against an illegal, but temporarily protected, immigrant seeking permanent residency in the country.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the court agreed with a circuit court decision that illegal immigrants with temporary protected status are not eligible for green cards, which allow them to remain in the country indefinitely. The decision means that immigrants with TPS may remain in the country but cannot establish residency. 

TPS is a designation the federal government extends to countries wracked by war or natural disaster. There are currently about 400,000 people in the United States from 12 countries with TPS status. The case at hand came from two El Salvadoran immigrants, Jose Sanchez and Sonia Gonzalez, who entered the country illegally in the 1990s. They have been living under TPS for more than 20 years following a 2001 earthquake in El Salvador and attempted to use that status as leverage in a residency fight.

Kagan wrote that TPS does not change the fact the two entered the country unlawfully.

“The TPS program gives foreign nationals nonimmigrant status, but it does not admit them," Kagan wrote. "So the conferral of TPS does not make an unlawful entrant (like Sanchez) eligible."