NEW YORK — Amir Duraki was sitting inside a Florida hospital on September 19, scrolling on his phone to pass the time, when he stumbled upon the news: the United States (US) government had officially struck Syria off the list of countries eligible for Temporary Protected Status (TPS). 

At the time, the 29-year-old was hospitalized with a flare-up of a chronic autoimmune condition affecting his liver, first diagnosed in 2011 when he was a teenager watching the early days of the Syrian revolution in his native Homs city. Treatment for that illness was what brought him to the US in the first place, 12 years ago. Now, he learned he had 60 days to leave. 

TPS is an immigration program that enables nationals of war-torn or disaster-impacted countries to stay and work in the US after the expiration of their original visa if returning would put them in danger. Since January, US President Donald Trump’s administration has put TPS in its crosshairs as part of a broader immigration crackdown, canceling the status for people from Venezuela, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Nepal, Honduras, Nicaragua—and now Syria.

With no other documentation authorizing his residency in the US, Amir is one of an estimated 6,000 Syrian TPS holders who have until November 21 to self-deport or risk becoming undocumented. 

“My condition is rare so one of the things that scares me to go back is facing severe health issues in Syria,” Amir said. In 2022, liver failure left him in critical condition, and he has been on edge ever since. “I came here to seek treatment and I fear now that going back might send me to square one again,” he added.

From Homs to Florida

Amir’s path from Homs to the US state of Florida was tumultuous. His health diagnosis, at the age of 16, marked the beginning of a quest to find treatment. Accompanied by his mother, he visited healthcare centers in Damascus and then Beirut in neighboring Lebanon, navigating a complicated maze of checkpoints and dwindling medical staff as the revolution spiraled into a grinding civil war. 

Ultimately, doctors in Beirut referred him for care at a specialized medical center in Florida. He arrived in the US on a B-1/B-2 visitor visa in 2013, and later applied for TPS, which enabled him to stay after his visa expired. His mother, who accompanied him to the US, returned to Homs. 

Over the years that followed, Amir graduated from college and built a life in the US. Today, he juggles his time between managing his illness, hustling between several part time jobs and, most recently, opening his own small business. 

Access to the medical infrastructure in the US is a lifeline for Amir. He depends on medications accessible in the US to manage his symptoms, and relies on his doctors in Florida—who are intimately familiar with the complexities of his case—for tailored medical care. 

But as the 13-year era of Syria’s TPS designation comes to an abrupt close, the short-term futures of thousands of Syrian nationals like Amir are unclear. 

“I’m just trying to take it day by day, but the future feels so unstable,” he said.

Swept up in the rhetoric

Syria was first designated as a TPS-eligible country in 2012, given the “violent upheaval and deteriorating situation” in the country, according to a statement issued at the time by the US Immigrations and Citizenship Services (USCIS), an arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 

Syria’s designation was continuously renewed at intervals of 18 months, and during Trump’s first term remained untouched by his administration’s attempt to strip several countries—such as Honduras and Venezuela—of their designation. Federal courts at the time blocked the decisions, and TPS designations were ultimately restored. 

On September 19, just 11 days before the deadline for Syria’s periodic review for redesignation, USCIS announced Syria’s termination from the program. “Conditions in Syria no longer prevent their nationals from returning home,” the agency said in a statement. 

But for many, there is simply no home to return to.

The pace of political change in Syria over the past 11 months since the toppling of the Assad regime has been dizzying, but progress on the humanitarian front is slow. Rebuilding a nation emerging from nearly 14 years of conflict takes time. Cities and towns remain in rubble, key services like water and electricity are unreliable and insecurity persists. 

Polling suggests that, while many Syrians intend to return home after the fall of Assad, fewer are ready to do so in the short term. A February 2025 UNHCR survey found that 27 percent of Syrian refugees hoped to return within a year, while 53 percent aimed to return within five years. Respondents cited limited access to housing, security concerns and poor infrastructure as the main barriers to return.

When it comes to considering applications for asylum, “the US government has regulations in place to recognize that there should be transitionary periods,” Nadeen Aljijakli, an Ohio-based immigration attorney specializing in Syrian TPS and asylum cases, told Syria Direct. “There’s a universal recognition that countries don’t magically get better because there’s a change in the government.”

In terminating TPS for Syrians, USCIS simultaneously described the country as a dangerous threat and a safe destination for return. “Syria has been a hotbed of terrorism and extremism for nearly two decades, and it is contrary to our national interest to allow Syrians to remain in our country,” its announcement read. Beyond the apparent contradiction, the statement reflects the hardline stance on immigration core to the Trump presidency. 

“TPS is not political. It is supposed to be looked at from a humanitarian perspective,” Aljijakli said. “Unfortunately, Syria was swept up in the rhetoric.” 

The Trump administration’s cancellation of TPS also fits with a global pattern of new immigration barriers pressuring Syrians to return home on the premise of increased stability in the country. Austria, Germany, and Sweden halted the processing of Syrian asylum applications just one day after Assad fell. In the United Kingdom, a September 2025 decision cancelled family reunification, a program with a high percentage of Syrian beneficiaries. 

A poster with a self-deport warning message is seen on a wall outside a courtroom at a federal immigration court in New York City, 11/6/2025 (Charly Triballeau/AFP)

A quick unraveling

The mood looming over the Syrian TPS community is one of “panic” and “distress,” two founding members of the Arab immigration advocacy group Immigrants Act Now, who asked not to be identified, told Syria Direct.

Eight Syrian TPS beneficiaries Syria Direct spoke to acknowledged that their status, by its very definition, is temporary, and never promised a pathway to permanent residency. Still, the abrupt timeline of the termination, which provided a mere two months notice before the deadline to self-deport, has left them scrambling for cover instead of making measured decisions about their next steps. 

The Immigrants Act Now team stressed that returning to Syria must be voluntary, not forced. “We love our country, but we can’t go there and not have a job. We can’t go there and not have a place to live. So it’s just a matter of time for people,” one said. 

Since September 19, the organization has been working to connect Syrian TPS beneficiaries with legal aid and resources as they make sense of their next steps. Unraveling lives established in the US, in many cases over the span of a decade, in a mere two months poses enormous challenges and questions that have no good answers. 

Khalid, who like other sources asked to be identified only by his first name, came to the US from Idlib in 2016 on an F-1 student visa and later received TPS. Since then, he has found work in construction, bought a house and welcomed two US-born sons. In the weeks since the September announcement, he has been trying to consult with lawyers about his options, adamant that returning to Syria is not one of them. 

His home in Idlib is gone, and his sons—the youngest of whom has autism and both of whom do not speak Arabic—would struggle to access the right treatment and education in Syria. “We have our whole lives here. It’s not that easy just to take a plane ticket and a thousand bucks and leave,” Khalid said, referencing incentives the US has laid out for those who self-deport before November 21. 

For Linda, originally from Hama, the abrupt termination of TPS means she may lose years of progress she has made towards her training in hospital dentistry. Nine months away from completing her dental residency program in Kentucky, she fears the looming deadline may come before she can sort out alternative status options through her employer. 

A member of Syria’s minority Ismaili sect, Linda looks at the situation in her home country with trepidation. Recent months have seen multiple outbursts of violence, including clashes and sectarian killings on the Alawite-majority coast and in Druze-majority Suwayda province. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen to me. I wake up every day feeling anxious,” she said.

No good options

On October 21, seven Syrian plaintiffs represented by the International Refugee Assistance Project, Muslim Advocates and a private law firm filed a class action lawsuit against DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. 

The lawsuit alleges that DHS’s move to cancel Syria’s TPS designation, given the short notice and “alarmingly normalized” use of “racist invective” to justify such decisions, violates the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), a statute that governs the rulemaking processes of federal agencies. 

The lawsuit calls the termination “arbitrary, capricious and contrary to law in violation of the APA because it represented an unacknowledged and unexplained departure from decades of decision-making practices and ordinary procedures.”

With previous legal challenges raised by Venezuelan and Afghan plaintiffs dismissed or still winding through the courts, precedent does not hint at success. “I think it’s highly unlikely that that decision will be changed,” attorney Aljijakli told Syria Direct the day the lawsuit was filed. Previous legal challenges have, however, delayed initial deadlines to leave the US. 

Aljijakli says many of her clients are now looking to apply for asylum or work visas to remain documented in the US. But the DHS’s assessment of Syria’s improved safety is not a good starting point for an asylum application, and the legal technicalities of TPS make it difficult to switch to another non-immigrant status without first leaving the country. 

Nour Z., who came to the US on a scientific research job in 2023 and later acquired TPS, has resigned herself to the idea that remaining in the country is untenable. She has started to pack her bags and downloaded the self-deportation form on her computer, preparing to return to Syria and live with her family in Damascus. 

She worries about safety in Syria, but says the risks of remaining in the US without documentation, vulnerable to forced deportation and a permanent ban on re-entry, are too high. It remains an open question whether the intensified Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids well documented across the country will start targeting Syrians come November 21. 

In Florida, Amir is also weighing his options, though few good ones remain. “I’m very stressed out, not knowing how to move forward,” he said.