The scheme wasn’t isolated to Honduras. A broader effort was underway at DHS to whitewash the conditions in multiple countries over the objections of career officials at the State Department. The aim, according to the then acting head of DHS, was to “send a clear signal that TPS in general is coming to a close.” Staffers were tasked with finding “positive gems” about individual countries that could be used as an excuse to end TPS protection for more than three hundred thousand of their citizens who were currently living in the US.
