(Minneapolis Star-Tribune) The news has roiled the Twin Cities’ West African community: A program that allowed natives of the countries hardest hit by the 2014 Ebola epidemic to stay and work here is ending next spring.
In September, U.S. officials granted a final six-month reprieve to about 5,900 visitors from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea here on Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and urged them to make departure plans before the program expires in May.
Community leaders had lobbied for the status and successfully pushed for extensions, arguing that the economies and health-care systems of these countries are still damaged even as infections have decreased.
