No one should have to build a life on borrowed time. That is why the current fight over Temporary Protected Status matters so much. The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in April over efforts to end TPS protections for Haitians and Syrians, and Deferred Enforced Departure for certain Liberians currently runs only through June 30, 2026. Those dates hang over real families trying to decide whether they can sign a lease, plan a school year, or believe that the life they have built will still be there after the next government notice.

As a Liberian and a human rights scholar, I have seen how uncertainty settles into ordinary family life. I do not think about these protections as technical immigration labels; I think about the people forced to live inside them. TPS was created for moments when armed conflict, environmental disaster, or other extraordinary conditions make return unsafe. In those moments, protection can mean safety instead of harm. But when a government renews protection for years without offering any durable path forward, relief starts to look more like instability managed by policy. 

For Liberians, that instability is not new. It sits inside a longer history of war, displacement, and the struggle to rebuild life after the Liberian Civil Wars. Many Liberians came to the United States to survive and rebuild their lives. And many did exactly that–worked, raised children, opened businesses, and became part of the community. Yet even after years of lawful presence and deep contribution, many still find themselves moving from one temporary status to another. This affects whether families sleep with peace or with another deadline hanging over them. They remind people that even after years of lawful presence, their lives can still be treated as provisional. Limbo is not stability.

That is the main problem with long-term temporary status. It affects whether people feel safe changing jobs, going back to school, or making long-term plans for their children. It means parents delay major life decisions, young people question whether college plans are realistic, and families learn to mark time by extensions the way other families mark time by graduations, leases, and birthdays. A person may look settled from the outside and still know that everything depends on the next court ruling, the next agency notice, or the next government. That is not security. It is survival organized by policy.

The emotional cost is just as real. Children do not need to understand immigration law to understand strain. They notice when their parents go quiet around deadlines. They see the tension that comes with applications, policy changes, and uncertain futures. We often talk about “family unity” as a human rights value. But unity is not only about whether a family is physically separated. It is also about whether a family can live without recurring insecurity. A government does not have to deport someone tomorrow to unsettle a home today. Sometimes the harm comes from making people live year after year without solid ground beneath them.

Contributors without Security

This arrangement is especially unjust because the people affected are already part of American life. The United States depends on immigrant lives while refusing to secure them. The American Immigration Council reports that TPS holders contributed more than $2.2 billion in taxes in 2021, held about $8 billion in spending power, and that TPS households earned $10.3 billion while most TPS holders were employed. These are workers, caregivers, parents, students, organizers, and neighbors. Their contribution is not theoretical. It is already woven into the country’s economic and social life. To rely on that contribution while withholding lasting security is not just inconsistent. It is wrong. 

Some will say this is exactly why TPS is temporary. In the narrow legal sense, that is true. It was designed as a short-term humanitarian response. But when people have lived here for decades, raised children here, and built communities here, calling them temporary stops sounding principled and starts sounding dishonest. Laws are supposed to serve human beings, not trap them in limbo.

The United States should preserve humanitarian protections for times of crisis. But when temporary protection stretches across years or decades, the answer cannot always be another short extension followed by another season of anxiety. Congress should stop treating decades of contribution as temporary and create a pathway to permanent status for long-term recipients who have already built their lives here. No one should have to build a life on borrowed time. People who have already built their lives here deserve more than another extension. They deserve permanence.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s only and do not reflect an official position of the University of Minnesota, the Human Rights Program, or the College of Liberal Arts. As an institution of higher education that values and promotes free speech, civil discourse, and human rights, we welcome a variety of perspectives and opinions from our student contributors that are consistent with these values.