Citing “extreme drought conditions” and “social and economic crises exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Robert Menendez leads more than 30 senators in calling on the Biden administration to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Salvadoran, Honduran, and Nicaraguan immigrants already in the U.S.

Senators additionally call on the administration to create protections for immigrants from Guatemala. Reuters reports that more than 2 million immigrants already in the U.S. could be protected from deportation, and imminent harm. “The crisis in Central America is urgent,” senators write.

“In the past year, the region has experienced extreme weather events, including two hurricanes followed by a months-long drought,” senators including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tell Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Menendez chairs the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which has previously released a report detailing how the previous administration cruelly and politically targeted the program and its beneficiaries, many of whom have U.S. citizen children.

Senators write in their recent letter to Mayorkas and Blinken that the effects of natural disasters and the ongoing pandemic in these nations “have profoundly exacerbated food insecurity, violence, and led to rising social tensions.” Indeed, experts have pointed to climate change effects as a significant reason for increasing migration numbers.

“Additionally, countries in the region have suffered severe democratic backsliding and political persecution is on the rise, including through the consolidation of a dictatorship in Nicaragua, the dismantling of independent judiciaries, and efforts to intimidate and silence civil society and independent media,” senators continue. (Click here for a full list of signatories.)

“The Biden administration must act and provide certainty for eligible individuals from Central America during this challenging moment,” including a new TPS designation for immigrants from Guatemala. “These temporary designations would give the U.S. government more time to partner with governments and civil society in the region to ensure that the return of a large number of individuals to Central America does not create further instability and volatility.”

TPS was signed into law under President George H.W. Bush and has allowed immigrants fleeing civil conflict, natural disaster, and other life-threatening conditions to live and work legally in the U.S. Designations have been created and extended without much attention or controversy. But TPS and its beneficiaries became a frequent target of the former president and his racist administration, including white supremacist Stephen Miller.

”When recommending the termination of TPS, Trump administration officials were aware that TPS recipients—and any of their accompanying American children—would face crime and violence if repatriated to El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti,” Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said in the 2019 report. “Ending TPS for the three countries would lead to an unprecedented wave of de facto forced separation of American families as TPS recipient parents would feel obligated to leave their American citizen children in the United States.”

“It is our view that El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua meet the standards for TPS,” senators tell Mayorkas and Blinken. “We look forward to working closely with and supporting the Biden administration as it take this important step to uphold humanitarian protections, safeguard U.S. national security interests, and defend American families.”