Syrians

Trump administration says Syrian nationals in the US must leave the country within 60 days or face arrest and deportation.

The United States has ended the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Syria, warning Syrian migrants they now face arrest and deportation if they do not leave the country within 60 days.

The action on Friday came as part of US President Donald Trump’s broad effort to strip legal status from migrants.

It will terminate TPS for more than 6,000 Syrians who have had access to the legal status since 2012, according to a Federal Register notice posted Friday.

“Conditions in Syria no longer prevent their nationals from returning home,” Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

“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.”

The statement said Syrian nationals currently living in the US have 60 days to voluntarily depart the country and return home.

“After the 60 days have expired, any Syrian national admitted under TPS who have not begun their voluntary removal proceedings will be subject to arrest and deportation,” it said.

Trump, a Republican, has sought to end temporary legal status for hundreds of thousands of migrants in the US, including some who have lived and worked in the country legally for decades.

The administration has said deportation protections were overused in the past and that many migrants no longer merit protections.

Democrats and advocates for the migrants have said that TPS enrollees could be forced to return to dangerous conditions and that US employers depend on their labour.

Trump has previously ended the status for Venezuelans, Hondurans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Ukrainians and thousands of others.

Aref Shamtan, 73, chose to erect a tent near his decimated home in northwest Syria instead of remaining in a displacement camp following the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.

“I feel good here, even among the rubble,” Shamtan said, sipping tea at the tent near his field.

Upon returning with his son after al-Assad was toppled in December, Shamtan discovered his village of al-Hawash, situated amid farmland in central Hama province, severely damaged.

His house had lost its roof and suffered cracked walls. Nevertheless, “living in the rubble is better than living in the camps” near the Turkish border, where he had resided since fleeing the conflict in 2011, Shamtan explained.

Since al-Assad’s downfall after nearly 14 years of war, the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration reports that 1.87 million Syrians who were refugees abroad or internally displaced have returned to their places of origin.

The IOM identifies the “lack of economic opportunities and essential services” as the greatest challenge facing returnees.

Unable to afford rebuilding, Shamtan decided approximately two months ago to leave the camp with his family and young grandchildren, and has begun planting wheat on his land.

Al-Hawash had been under al-Assad’s control and bordered front lines with neighbouring Idlib province, which became a stronghold for opposition groups, particularly Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the opposition fighters that spearheaded the offensive that toppled the former president.

“We cannot stay in the camps,” Shamtan maintained, even though “the village is all destroyed … and life is non-existent,” lacking fundamental services and infrastructure.

“We decided … to live here until things improve. We are waiting for organisations and the state to help us,” he added. “Life is tough.”

Local official Abdel Ghafour al-Khatib, 72, has also returned after escaping in 2019 with his wife and children to a camp near the border.

“I just wanted to get home. I was overjoyed … I returned and pitched a worn-out tent. Living in my village is the important thing,” he stated.

“Everyone wants to return,” he noted. However, many cannot afford transportation in a country where 90 percent of the population lives in poverty.

“There is nothing here – no schools, no health clinics, no water and no electricity,” al-Khatib said while sitting on the ground in his tent near what remains of his home.

The conflict, which erupted in 2011 following al-Assad’s brutal suppression of antigovernment protests, killed more than 500,000 people and displaced half of Syria’s pre-war population either internally or abroad, with many seeking refuge in Idlib province.

According to the International Organization for Migration, more than six million people remain internally displaced.

Syrians are describing it as a turning point – “The second joy since the fall of Bashar al-Assad.”

United States President Donald Trump has announced he will lift all sanctions on Syria, as a way to help the country rebuild after years of civil war.

The United Nations estimates half of the Syrian population is displaced, and nearly 75 percent needs humanitarian aid.

It says that, at its current rate of growth, Syria will take at least half a century to achieve its pre-war economic level.

President Ahmed al-Sharaa has already called on the United States to invest in the nation’s oil and gas sector.

But can he capitalise on the removal of US restrictions and transform the fragmented and devastated country?

And what about Syria’s fragile security situation?

Presenter:

Folly Bah Thibault

Guests:

Sinan Hatahet – Nonresident Fellow, Atlantic Council’s Syria Project.

Joshua Landis – Director of the Center for Middle East Studies, University of Oklahoma.

Omar Alshogre – Syrian refugee and director for detainee affairs at the Syrian Emergency Task Force.

Syrians celebrated throughout the night after US President Donald Trump announced he would lift US sanctions on Syria during his visit to Saudi Arabia. Imran Khan breaks down what this means for the Syrian people.

Celebrations broke out across Syria after President Donald Trump said the United States would lift sanctions on the country.

The Syrian foreign ministry on Tuesday welcomed Trump’s announcement, calling it a “pivotal turning point for the Syrian people, as we seek to emerge from a long and painful chapter of war”.

“The removal of those sanctions offers a vital opportunity for Syria to pursue stability, self-sufficiency, and meaningful national reconstruction, led by and for the Syrian people,” it said in a statement.

In a speech given in Riyadh, the US president said he “will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness”.

US sanctions have isolated Syria from the global financial system and imposed a range of economic restrictions on the government over more than a decade of war in the country.

The lingering sanctions have widely been seen as a major obstacle to Syria’s economic recovery and post-war reconstruction.

Syrians met the news with joy and celebration, with dozens of men, women and children gathering in Damascus’s Umayyad Square. They blasted music while others drove by in their cars, waving Syrian flags.

“My joy is great, this decision will definitely affect the entire country positively. Construction will return, the displaced will return and prices will go down,” said Huda Qassar, a 33-year-old English language teacher, celebrating with her compatriots.

In the northern province of Idlib, Bassam al-Ahmed, 39, said he was very happy about the announcement.

“It is the right of the Syrian people, after 14 years of war and 50 years of the Assads’ oppression, to live through stability and safety,” he said.

Mazloum Abdi, also known as Mazloum Kobani, the leader of the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, welcomed the decision, saying he hopes it “will be invested in supporting stability and reconstruction, ensuring a better future for all Syrians”.