A newly obtained Biden White House memo shows senior advisers putting a list of last-minute immigration moves before the former president that could have made more than 3.1 million additional noncitizens eligible for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) just days before President Donald Trump returned to office.
The memo, released Thursday by Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), detailed requests from Democratic lawmakers, mayors, and immigration advocacy groups to expand TPS before Biden left office. Those protections would have allowed eligible applicants to obtain work permits and remain in the United States while shielding them from deportation.
The document is dated January 2, 2024, but references Trump as president-elect and discusses remarks he made in October 2024, an apparent dating error. Schmitt obtained it through a special-access request in his role as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution.
Schmitt did not mince words when releasing it:
BREAKING: I am releasing a newly obtained internal Presidential memorandum from the Biden White House.
— Senator Eric Schmitt (@SenEricSchmitt) July 23, 2026
It details how Biden was advised to block President Trump's deportation of 3.1 MILLION noncitizens—including Tren de Aragua members—through “Temporary” Protected Status. pic.twitter.com/oIquq3pRm7
The memo acknowledged that TPS applications took an average of six months to process, meaning anyone made newly eligible during Biden's final weeks would not have received a decision before Trump took office. Biden could expand the pool, but Trump's administration would inherit the backlog.
According to the senator’s posts, the requests arriving at the White House went well beyond routine extensions:
“YOUR senior team has received requests from stakeholders, including some Members of Congress (principally the Congressional Hispanic Caucus as well as Senators Bennett (D-CO), Booker (D-NJ), Cortez Masto (D-NY), Durbin (D-IL), Hirono (D-HI), Lujan (D-NM), Duckworth (D-IL), and Padilla (D-CA)), some mayors, and a range of advocacy organizations to take TPS-related actions for additional countries before the end of YOUR Administration.”
The reason for the rush was spelled out:
The memo states the motive openly, appease Leftist stakeholders.
— Senator Eric Schmitt (@SenEricSchmitt) July 23, 2026
Supporters wanted Biden to “protect” migrants from President-elect Trump’s “planned mass deportations.”
They were asking a defeated President to obstruct the immigration mandate Americans had just delivered. pic.twitter.com/YjM9dzUZyR
Stakeholders argue that granting TPS will potentially protect many vulnerable people from President-elect Trump’s planned mass deportations, including some who live in “mixed status” families with U.S. citizens. They argue that these protections are likely to hold in court, and they are prepared to litigate efforts to terminate or slow down the implementation of TPS for specified nations by the Trump Administration.
The memo noted that litigation had blocked Trump's first-term TPS rollbacks, but conceded those cases prevailed largely because his administration had failed to build a sufficient factual record, a correctable mistake.
The appendix put numbers behind the requests:
The target list included:
— Senator Eric Schmitt (@SenEricSchmitt) July 23, 2026
• 455,000 Venezuelans
• 464,000 Nicaraguans
• 600,000 Ecuadorians
• 1.5 million Guatemalans
• Tens of thousands more from Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Sudan
De facto amnesty by executive decree. pic.twitter.com/9ClyYZmiFl
The memo predicted Republicans would argue that redesignating Venezuela amounted to amnesty for Tren de Aragua gang members, and while the document did not say gang members would automatically qualify, Schmitt argued the expansion risked shielding them from deportation.
The largest proposals were never implemented. Biden did not create new designations for Ecuador or Guatemala, though his administration did extend protections for nearly one million Venezuelan, Salvadoran, and Ukrainian nationals one week after receiving the memo.
Read More: SCOTUS Hands Trump Major Immigration Win - Says Courts Can't Second-Guess Most TPS Decisions
GOP Defections Spark Lawmaker's Push to End Temporary Protected Status
The broader Democratic strategy of using courts to protect TPS has since taken a serious hit. In June, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that most statutory challenges to TPS terminations cannot be reviewed by federal courts, giving Trump greater authority to end the protections without years of lower-court interference.
Schmitt later took to the Senate floor and described the cycle that allowed supposedly temporary protections to become increasingly difficult to end:
Here is the TPS racket:
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) July 23, 2026
Declare an emergency.
Grant “temporary” status.
Wait for the emergency to pass.
Extend the status anyway.
Repeat until temporary becomes permanent.
Democrats built a one-way ratchet for mass immigration. pic.twitter.com/VjUF2tbQ4C
“TPS was created for emergencies. Democrats turned it into a one-way racket towards permanent mass migration. Here’s how the racket works: An emergency creates temporary status, then the emergency passes, but the status stays. The deadline arrives, but Washington extends it. The voters demand enforcement, but Democrats refuse. Every click moves towards permanence. None moves back towards the law. That is the TPS racket.”
Biden’s team did not secure the full 3.1-million-person expansion. The memo still records exactly what stakeholders wanted placed in Trump’s path: broader TPS coverage, an application backlog Biden knew his administration could not finish, and another round of lawsuits prepared by immigration advocates.
Editor’s Note: We voted for mass deportations, not mass amnesty. Help us continue to fight back against those trying to go against the will of the American people.
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