U.S. Ends Temporary Protected Status for Syrians, Orders Departure Within 60 Days

Erbil (Kurdistan24) – The United States has announced it will terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Syrians, ending more than a decade of legal residency safeguards and signaling a new phase in Washington’s restrictive immigration agenda. The decision affects over 6,000 Syrians who have lived under TPS since 2012, thrusting them into uncertainty similar to that faced by Kurdish refugees across Europe.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) declared on Friday that conditions in Syria no longer warrant extending deportation protections. “Conditions in Syria no longer prevent their nationals from returning home. Syria has been a hotbed of terrorism and extremism for nearly two decades, and it is contrary to our national interest to allow Syrians to remain in our country,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

Under the new directive, Syrian nationals currently residing in the United States will have 60 days to depart voluntarily. Those who remain beyond that deadline could face arrest and deportation. The announcement marks another step in former President Donald Trump’s broader effort to revoke temporary legal status for hundreds of thousands of migrants, including communities that have lived and worked legally in the U.S. for decades.

While administration officials have defended the decision as part of a strategy to curb “overuse” of TPS, migrant advocates and Democrats argue that ending these protections will expose Syrians to grave dangers upon return and disrupt U.S. employers who rely on their labor.

The move comes as Europe, too, has hardened its stance on asylum. In Germany, recent changes to immigration and asylum laws have dashed the hopes of many Kurdish refugees who once viewed the country as a gateway to safety and opportunity.

Germany’s “Return Improvement Act” (Rückführungsverbesserungsgesetz), which took effect in February 2024, expanded pre-deportation detention to 28 days and gave police broader powers to enter refugee accommodations in search of deportees. The agreement between Germany and Iraq has further deepened fears, as embassy staff have begun interviewing rejected asylum seekers in preparation for forced returns.

For many Kurdish refugees, the impact has been devastating. In Stuttgart, Omid Khalid, who has lived in Germany for seven years, expressed despair after repeated application rejections, describing the situation as “psychologically unbearable.” Another refugee, Dzhwar Agid, broke into tears while recounting that he had already been deported twice: “My life here is destroyed. I wish I had never come.”

Even those who have been working legally remain trapped in limbo. Mohammad Sobhi, who has been employed in Stuttgart for three years, said he is still waiting for a decision on his residency application. “This anxiety is killing me,” he told Kurdistan24. Families, too, now face the crushing reality that the Germany they once imagined as a safe haven may no longer have space for them.

Both Washington’s termination of TPS for Syrians and Berlin’s accelerating deportation measures underscore a global trend in which Western nations are moving away from expansive humanitarian protections. Where once Syrians and Kurds found temporary shelter, they now face narrowing legal pathways and looming deportations.

For Syrians in the United States, the end of TPS threatens to dismantle lives built over more than a decade. For Kurds in Germany, the tightening asylum regime has turned daily existence into a cycle of waiting, anxiety, and fear of removal.

These shifts, critics argue, reflect not just immigration control but a broader retreat from international responsibility toward those fleeing war, instability, and persecution.