President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is providing a so-called “temporary” amnesty to about 11,000 Lebanese nationals living in the United States, ensuring they are not deported and can hold American jobs.
On Thursday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for thousands of Lebanese nationals in the U.S. who would otherwise be eligible for deportation.
Lebanese nationals with TPS will be able to remain in the U.S. and hold American jobs through January 2026 as long as they claim that they were in the country as of Oct. 16 of this year.
In addition, Mayorkas has announced so-called “Special Student Relief” for Lebanese nationals who are in the U.S. on F-1 student visas, which will allow them to “request employment authorization, work an increased number of hours while school is in session, and reduce their course load while continuing to maintain F-1 status through the Deferred Enforced Departure designation period.”
About 1,740 Lebanese nationals on F-1 student visas are expected to secure Special Student Relief under the designation.
TPS was first created under the Immigration Act of 1990 and prevents federal immigration officials from deporting people from countries that are designated as experiencing famine, war, or natural disasters.
Since the Clinton administration, TPS has been transformed into a de facto amnesty program, as the Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, and now Biden-Harris administrations have continuously renewed the program for a variety of countries.
Today, nearly 900,000 foreign nationals in the U.S. are shielded from deportation after having secured TPS. The vast majority are from Venezuela, Haiti, El Salvador, Honduras, and Ukraine.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
