U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rules against illegal immigrants to receive permanent residency

The Supreme Court ruled against illegal immigrants seeking green cards, including those with temporary status. 

On Monday, the Supreme Court determined that illegal immigrants, including those who have earned a Temporary Protected Status (TPS), are ineligible to apply for a green card.

As The Daily Wire reports, one of the Court’s liberal justices, Elena Kagan, supported a rule that barred “unlawful entrants” with TPS from applying for permanent U.S. residency. While Kagan acknowledges that the temporary rank “gives foreign nationals nonimmigrant status,” she notes that it does not erase their “unlawful entry.”

According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the designation applies to people who come from countries ravaged by war or disaster, protects them from deportation, and allows them to work legally.

At present, the TPS status owners are 400,000 people from 12 different countries. 

Justice Kagen stated:

“The TPS program gives foreign nationals nonimmigrant status, but it does not admit them. So the conferral of TPS does not make an unlawful entrant…eligible.”

The judge added that if Congress had wanted to provide “admission” into the country along with the TPS, they could have done it by the time they were composing the law. She continued:

“Congress, of course, could have gone further, by deeming TPS recipients to have not only nonimmigrant status but also a lawful admission. Legislation pending in Congress would do just that.

The House of Representatives already has passed legislation that would make it possible for TPS recipients to become permanent residents. The bill faces uncertain prospects in the Senate.”

The 400,000 immigrants who might be affected by the new rule, in case they entered the U.S. illegally, are from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen.