SILVER SPRING, Maryland — “CLINIC commends the Biden administration for extending and redesignating TPS for Syria, a decision warranted both under the law and by morality,” said Anna Gallagher, executive director of Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. “Despite ongoing and deteriorating conditions in many TPS-designated countries, no country has received a redesignation of TPS since 2016. Today's decision is significant, not only for the people from Syria who will directly benefit, but because of the message it sends. The United States is restoring its commitment to providing humanitarian protection.”

A letter to the Biden administration signed by more than 100 organizations describes the conflict and humanitarian disaster that demanded both an extension and redesignation of TPS for Syria. At least 11 million people inside Syria are in need of humanitarian aid and the indiscriminate attacks from the Syrian and Russian governments on hospitals, schools, markets and roads continue in the Northwest, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people have been forced to relocate.

“By redesignating TPS for Syria, people who arrived in the U.S. since 2016 will finally be able register and obtain a measure of safety. Redesignation, in addition to the extension, also sends a powerful message that the U.S. is returning to its core value of humanitarianism,” said Jill Marie Bussey, director of Advocacy at CLINIC. "Like U.S. asylum and refugee law, TPS stems from our commitment after WWII that we will not return people to countries where their lives are at risk. We applaud this decision and urge the new administration to use its administrative authority to grant TPS as broadly as possible to safeguard human life, as Congress intended.“

For more, see this letter to the Biden administration from 113 organizations, and these TPS policy recommendations for the first 100 days from the TPS Advocacy Working Group.