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Ukrainian citizens currently inside the U.S. will be granted temporary protected status by the Department of Homeland Security, its leader said Thursday.
Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas made the disclosure in a video that was posted on Twitter.
“I’m proud to announce that we will be providing temporary protected status, TPS, to those Ukrainian nationals who are present in the United States as of March 1 of this year,” Mayorkas says in the video. “Our relief [and] our hearts are with them, and we will do everything in our power to support them.”
The TPS designation is scheduled to apply for 18 months, Homeland Security Today reported.
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Temporary protected status is often granted for foreign visitors in the U.S. whose homelands are affected by any of three major situations: war, environmental disaster or an unspecified extraordinary or temporary occurrence, the report said.
In his video, Mayorkas also slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin for launching Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last week.
“We condemn Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked attack against the Ukrainian people,” Mayorkas said. “Our hearts stand with the Ukrainian people, who are suffering so much tragedy and so much loss.”
In late February, the DHS announced that President Biden had placed Mayorkas’ agency in charge of coordinating domestic preparedness and response efforts related to any impacts on the U.S. resulting from the Russia-Ukraine war.
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Fox News contributor Sara Carter called Biden’s decision “absolutely incredible,” arguing Mayorkas had “completely failed the American people on the national security of the U.S.-Mexico border,” and was thus the wrong person to “be put in charge of looking at the potential threats coming from Ukraine.”
A group of at least 14 Republican state attorneys generals apparently agree. In a letter to Mayorkas in late February, they called on Mayorkas to resign over conditions at the southern border.
