Though Yemen is a war-torn Islamic country that has long been known as a breeding ground for Al-Qaeda terrorists, the Biden administration recently announced it will grant a provisional amnesty known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to more than 2,000 Yemeni nationals living illegally in the United States to shield them from deportation.
Preston Huennekens, government relations manager at the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), says it is a bad idea.
"For every Yemeni who would be placed on TPS, there is a risk that all of these people from this country that really has no rule of law, there's really no vetting associated when these people come over -- there's a threat that those people would potentially be put on a pathway to citizenship because of amnesty from the Biden administration," Huennekens warns.
He is outraged that the president is going out of his way to protect Yemenis while not allowing legitimate political refugees from Cuba to seek freedom in the U.S.
"Cuba is in our backyard. It's only 90 miles from the southern tip of Florida," he notes. "We've had a relationship with Cubans who have fled the Castro regime for decades now. Yemen is very far away from the United States."
So Huennekens does not think it makes sense to allow people from thousands of miles away "this kind of privileged status."
