Milton Friedman once said, “Nothing is as permanent as a temporary government program.” The income tax — both in this country and in Britain — was supposed to be a temporary measure to finance wars (in our case, the Civil War). Farm subsidies were supposed to be an emergency measure for the Great Depression. The Patriot Act was supposed to be a temporary measure to thwart terrorists, before it became a convenient way to spy on domestic political campaigns. In every case, the government introduces a policy, claiming it is temporary and then, just like “15 days to slow the spread,” it continues indefinitely.
But even with that history in mind, you still have to stand back and admire the sheer gall involved in the “temporary protected status” program, otherwise known as TPS. In the case of TPS, Congress literally put the word “temporary” in the name, when they came up with the idea in 1990. They could not have been more explicit. The plan was to give certain foreign nationals a “temporary protected status” in this country, so they could live here and work here, rather than going back home, after their homeland had suffered some kind of terrible catastrophe. And yet, “temporary protected status” has never actually been “temporary.”
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