Maria Sacchetti, The Washington Post
Ethiopian nationals residing in the United States may apply for work permits and temporary protection from deportation because of the escalating conflict in their homeland, the Department of Homeland Security said Friday.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement that it is unsafe for people to return Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most-populous country, because of internal conflict and a broadening humanitarian crisis that has put civilians at risk of murder, rape and detention based on their ethnicity. Added to that are acute food shortages in some areas, as well as flooding in some regions and drought in others, he said.
“The United States recognizes the ongoing armed conflict and the extraordinary and temporary conditions engulfing Ethiopia, and DHS is committed to providing temporary protection to those in need,” Mayorkas said.
He said Ethiopians “will be able to remain and work in the United States until conditions in their home country improve.”
The Department of Homeland Security said the designation is the first for citizens of Ethiopia. Only those already residing in the United States as of Oct. 20 will be eligible to apply for the protection, which will be valid for 18 months.
An estimated 26,700 Ethiopians in the United States will be eligible to apply, DHS officials said. Typically applicants are those who are in the country without proper documentation or whose visas are soon to expire.
Applications will open after the announcement is published in the Federal Register in the coming days, and applicants must pass background checks to qualify.
The announcement comes days after Ethiopian government soldiers seized control of a key city in the northern region of Tigray using heavy artillery and airstrikes, in some of the most furious battles since a five-month cease-fire ended in August.
The conflict started in 2020 when tensions between the Tigray region’s leaders and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, escalated into armed conflict, pitting the government against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, a political party that had ruled Ethiopia for three decades.
U.N. Secretary General António Guterres on Monday warned that conditions in Ethiopia were “spiraling out of control.”
He said the conflict has led hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians to flee their homes amid “alarming levels” of brutality, including “disturbing accounts of sexual violence.” He also called for peace talks and urged Eritrean armed forces fighting alongside the Ethiopian military to immediately withdraw.
“There is no military solution,” he said. “Civilians are paying a horrific price.”
Congressional Democrats led by Reps. Anthony G. Brown (Md.) and Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) have been urging the Biden administration to grant the protected status, saying in an April 28 letter to federal officials that human rights organizations had documented “severe famine conditions, sexual violence as a weapon of war, crumbling infrastructure, and more.”
Advocacy groups on Friday called the protection a lifesaving measure.
“Ethiopia has been plunged into a devastating civil war, making return for Ethiopian nationals a potentially fatal prospect, particularly for those of the Tigrayan minority,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and chief executive of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, said in a statement.
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