Honduras President Nasry Asfura sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on July 1 requesting a formal transition period for Honduran Temporary Protected Status holders, after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling made large-scale TPS revocations legally viable, according to El Diario.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on June 25 to uphold the Trump administration’s authority to revoke TPS, in cases involving approximately 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians. The ruling did not directly address Honduras’s TPS designation, but Asfura’s letter, as reported by El Diario from its Spanish-language text, acknowledged that it “has configured a new legal landscape that makes bilateral coordination especially important.”
Tens of thousands of Hondurans have lived and worked in the United States for more than two decades under TPS, Asfura wrote. Many have started businesses, bought homes, and raised families that include U.S.-citizen children.
In the letter, Asfura asked Rubio to work with the Department of Homeland Security to establish “a reasonable and clearly delimited additional transition period” or an equivalent administrative mechanism. He also asked that work authorizations remain temporarily active during that period, arguing it “would avoid unnecessary labor disruptions, would favor voluntary compliance, and would allow both governments to adequately coordinate cases of those who must return.”
Asfura said he wants affected Hondurans to receive qualified legal advice, assess whether they qualify for other immigration pathways under U.S. law, put their family, work, education, and property matters in order, and, when applicable, prepare for a “coordinated, dignified, and safe return to Honduras.”
On June 25, Honduras’s Foreign Ministry announced the start of a “high-level” diplomatic campaign directed at the United States in response to the Supreme Court ruling, El Diario reported. In a statement, the Honduran government said it “takes note” of the decision and would pursue available legal and diplomatic alternatives.
Asfura framed the letter in terms of shared interests, writing that Honduras “fully recognizes the temporary nature of TPS and respects the decisions made sovereignly by the institutions of the United States.” An abrupt termination, he wrote, could result in family separation, sudden job and income loss, educational disruption, property losses, and operational difficulties for authorities in both countries.
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