US homeland security secretary tells migrants to seek permanent status or leave

Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, testifies during a House oversight hearing in Washington DC on 25 June. Photograph: Nathan Posner/Shutterstock View image in fullscreen Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, testifies during a House oversight hearing in Washington DC on 25 June. Photograph: Nathan Posner/Shutterstock US homeland security secretary tells migrants to seek permanent status or leave Markwayne Mullin’s remarks come after controversial supreme court ruling to strip TPS from over 350,000 people Migrants in the US on temporary protected status should seek permanent residence or leave, Markwayne Mullin, Homeland Security secretary, said in the wake of last week’s supreme court decision that stripped humanitarian protections from hundreds of thousands of immigrants. The remarks to CNN’s State of the Union program comes after a decision ⁠that could allow Donald Trump’s administration to deport Haitian and Syrian immigrants to home countries plagued by conflict and ​destitution. “Either try to fill ‌out the paperwork and ‌be here underneath a permanent status or we’ll help you get ‌back to your country,” Mullin said. “We’ll actually give you a plane ticket, plus roughly $2,100 to help you re-establish when you get there, but temporary protective status, according to the courts and in its name itself, is not permanent status,” he added. ‘It’s just so wrong’: Haitians in Ohio reel from supreme court TPS ruling Read more Federal law allows ‌the administration to grant temporary legal residency in the United States to people fleeing war, disaster or other conditions. The ​status had previously been renewed successively and, despite the move to end these protections, the state department currently warns against traveling to either Haiti or Syria, citing widespread violence, crime, terrorism and kidnapping. The United States ⁠first provided temporary protected status (TPS) to Haitians after a devastating earthquake in ​2010, and ​to Syrians after their country descended ​into civil war in 2012. Thursday’s supreme court decision is set to affect an estimated 350,000 Haitian and 6,000 Syrian immigrants who now face Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE ) detention or deportation as protections end. Haitian TPS holders and advocates have widely condemned the ruling, warning that it will disrupt the lives of thousands who have been living and working in the US for decades. Haitian residents in Springfield, Ohio, have expressed despair about the coming effects of ending TPS protections. During the 2024 election, ​Trump falsely ‌ accused Haitians living in ​the town of ​eating others’ household pets. The repeated insults resulted in bomb threats as well as white supremacist marches in the city. The supreme court’s conservative majority found, however, that Haitians suing the administration were unlikely to succeed in their argument that the administration’s actions were racially biased. Supreme court conservatives accus