The Department of Homeland Security is revoking protections that shielded some South Sudanese living in the United Status from deportation, saying it is now safe for them to return to their chaotic East African nation.
The order, which will take effect in early January, affects the small number of South Sudanese who have temporary protected status, which allows people already in the U.S. to stay and work legally if their homelands are deemed unsafe.
But the news comes amid fears that the 2018 peace agreement ending that nation’s civil war is collapsing, with growing hunger, violence and kidnappings, including of aid workers, and weeks after an international ceasefire monitor warned that all sides in the conflict were recruiting new fighters.
The announcement, which was released for public review Wednesday in the Federal Register, will be formally published Thursday. It will take effect 60 days later.
The DHS statement acknowledged South Sudan is dealing with “violence linked to border disputes, cross-border violence, cyclical and retaliatory attacks, and ethnic polarization,” but notes that “return to full-scale civil war, to-date, has been avoided.”