House lawmakers next week will examine how temporary amnesty programs, including Temporary Protected Status or TPS, were abused by past administrations to enable permanent benefits and residency for illegal immigrants.
The House Oversight Committee’s Task Force on Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses will conduct the inquiry at a hearing Tuesday.
“Pro-amnesty politicians and the radical left have abused our immigration system to the detriment of the American people,” said Task Force Chairman Brandon Gill, Texas Republican.
Temporary Protected Status has been extended to immigrants from more than a dozen countries and for years has been routinely extended, becoming a de facto amnesty in the eyes of critics.
The TPS program expanded under the Obama and Biden administrations.
The Trump administration has cracked down on TPS, revoking the status for millions of immigrants from Haiti, Venezuela, Myanmar, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, South Sudan and other countries.
Lawsuits on behalf of immigrants from those nations have kept their TPS status alive, however.
“Pro-illegal alien activists are engaging in frivolous litigation against the Trump Administration to allow continued abuse of the U.S. immigration system,” Mr. Gill said.
The hearing will feature testimony from Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for reduced immigration.
Other witnesses include Matt O’Brien, deputy director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, and Arnoldo Diaz, of the National TPS Alliance, which advocates for non-citizens living in the United States under Temporary Protected Status.
The Supreme Court is soon expected to issue a ruling on whether the Trump administration can revoke TPS for 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians living in the U.S.
Advocates for TPS say revoking it would put millions of immigrants at risk and threaten the U.S. economy.
According to the American Immigration Council, more than 164,000 TPS holders from Haiti earned $3.9 billion in total household income and paid $984 million in taxes. The organization said 1.3 million people were living in the United States under TPS as of March 31, 2025.
Critics of TPS say the de facto amnesty program threatens national security and is a drain on public programs.
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