Experienced Immigration Lawyers for TPS

Who’s Eligible for TPS?

In order to be eligible for Temporary Protected Status you must:

• Be a national of a country that's designated for temporary protected status, or you’re without nationality, but your recent country of residence was a designated country.
• File your TPS application during the open initial registration or re-registration period (or qualify for late initial filing extension)
• Have been physically present in the U.S., except for brief trips outside of the country, since the most recent date that your country was designated for TPS. This is called being continuously physically present (CPP). When you go to apply or re-register for TPS, you’ll have to notify USCIS of all of your trips outside of the U.S. since the CPP and CR dates, and they’ll decide whether or not you qualify for the exception.
• Have been continuously residing (CR) in the U.S. since your country’s most recent TPS designation date.

Countries Designated for TPS

Currently there are 15 countries designated for temporary protected status: Afghanistan, Ukraine, Nepal, Burma (Myanmar), Haiti, Yemen, Cameroon, Honduras, El Salvador, Somalia, Nicaragua, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela.

What Evidence Do You Need For a TPS Application?

Identity and Nationality Evidence

You must provide identity and nationality evidence to prove your identity and that you're a national of a country that's designated for TPS, or that you don’t have a nationality and you last primarily lived in a country that is designated for TPS.

You should submit documents that are considered to be primary evidence. If your documents are unsatisfactory to USCIS, they’ll send you a request for more. Primary evidence includes documents like: a photo ID, a copy of your birth certificate, a copy of your passport, and any national identity document that’s issued by your country (or your country's Consulate or Embassy in the U.S.) that contains your photograph or fingerprint—like a naturalization certificate, or a national ID card.

If you aren’t able to provide any primary evidence documents, you’ll have to submit an affidavit to USCIS proving that you tried to get those documents, and explaining why you weren’t able to do so through your country’s U.S. Embassy or Consulate. It may be in your best interest to reach out to a lawyer to help you through this process.

If you need to submit secondary evidence, it should be documentation about your nationality, like a naturalization certificate—even if it doesn’t contain your photograph and a fingerprint. You can also submit a baptismal certificate if it specifies your nationality, or that of one of your parents.

You may also provide any immigration documents that indicate your identity and nationality, as well as medical or school records if they contain information that helps support your claim to be a national from a country that’s designated for TPS.

You can also submit affidavits from family members and friends who know the date and place of your birth, and the nationality of your parents. Be aware that the individual making the affidavit needs to explain how they know you, or are related to you, and how they know details about your background. (It’s important for you to know that the nationality of your parents is significant if you're from a country where nationality is determined by the origin of your parents).

Date of Entry Evidence

You’ll need to provide evidence of when you entered the U.S. To do this you can provide a copy of your passport, an I-94 Arrival/Departure Record, or other similar documents that demonstrate your continuous residency in the U.S.

Continuous Residence (CR) Evidence

You’ll need to provide evidence to show that you've been in the U.S. since the CR date that was specified for your country. This means records of employment, utility bills, rent receipts, school records, medical records, and testimonies from people who know you and where you’ve been living, like officials from your church or other organizations.

Any documents that aren’t written in English must have a complete English translation, and the translator has to certify that they’re a competent English speaker and are proficient in the foreign language that's used in the original document. The translator must confirm that the translation is true and accurate, to the best of their ability.