Losing Status: How Efforts to Revoke Legal Status are Impacting the U.S. Economy

Losing Status: How Efforts to Revoke Legal Status are Impacting the U.S. Economy

In January 2025, an estimated 6.4 million immigrants had temporary protections.

Protections include Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), Temporary Protected Status (TPS), humanitarian parole, U or T visa application backlog protections, a Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) application deferral, or an active asylum claim.

As many as 3.6 million immigrants who continue to have protections are people with an active asylum claim. If their cases are closed without a hearing, most will have lost all temporary protections.

Since some immigrants have multiple immigrant protections, the loss of these protections leads to two defined groups: (1) immigrants who have lost all their temporary protections and have moved from a lawful to an unlawful status, or (2) immigrants who remain temporarily protected.

Demographics and Workforce

Industries of Employment

Economic Impacts, In Billions

Estimates are based on FWD.us’ immigrant status assignments in the augmented 2023 American Community Survey, including projections of the immigrant population statuses through January 20, 2025. For more information on the methodology, see fwd.us/acs-methodology.

Estimates are as of September 2, 2025. Significant losses in the temporarily protected immigrant population include the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Afghanistan, Cameroon, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (2023 designation), revocation of the CHNV parole policy, and loss of deportation deferral and access to work authorization for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) applicants and those approved for SIJS but remain in the visa queue. Additional monthly deductions through the expiration of two-year parole for CBPOne app paroled individuals as well as protections losses for U-T visa applicants after a four-year expiration of a bona fide application that permits deportation deferral and access to work authorization.