Less than a month after his inauguration as president, conservative Honduran President Nasry Asfura, traveled to Washington to meet with Donald Trump. Back in November, the US president openly showed his support for Asfura during the election campaign, even warning of possible negative consequences if his preferred candidate did not win.
Asfura faced a very close election against center-right candidate Salvador Nasralla, who repeatedly claimed that the elections had been rigged. The same opinion was held by the then-ruling leftist party, LIBRE, which stated that it did not recognize the electoral authority’s decision because it considered that the election had been carried out with major irregularities.
However, this did little to prevent Asfura and Trump from meeting almost immediately in a visit that, to the surprise of many, was classified as “unofficial” and private by the US authorities.
In fact, the meeting took place at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s residence in Florida, and according to several international media outlets, Asfura traveled north to discuss a number of issues with Trump, including the problem facing nearly 90,000 Hondurans, Nicaraguans, and Nepalese who were covered by Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which grants certain advantages to irregular migrants from countries that the United States considers to be in armed conflict or to have suffered a natural disaster, such as the impossibility of being deported.
In the case of the 51,000 Hondurans and 3,000 Nicaraguans covered by TPS, the justification was the devastation left by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 in several Central American countries.
The Department of Homeland Security had terminated TPS for Honduran migrants in July 2025, although a federal court in San Francisco halted the decision in December of the same year.
However, on February 9, the Court of Appeals lifted that injunction and gave the Department of Homeland Security the green light to continue with the processes it deems appropriate regarding Honduran migrants, which has caused a lot of tension in view of the recent actions of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem welcomed the decision, calling it a “victory” and a “vindication of the Constitution” of the United States. She also said that TPS was not designed to be permanent and that previous administrations had used it as “a de facto amnesty program for decades.”
Asfura unable to uphold campaign promises
An argument used by Asfura’s supporters during the 2025 election campaign claimed that, since Trump had a very positive and friendly view of Asfura, the Honduran conservative candidate could reverse the decision to eliminate TPS for Honduran migrants or, even better, grant those Hondurans permanent residency status.
That did not happen. Although Trump called the Honduran president “my friend”, Asfura failed to change the US president’s mind on immigration policy.
The Honduran government reported: “We take note, and regret, that the US administration remains firm in its decision to cancel Temporary Protected Status.” However, the Honduran Foreign Ministry said that the decision corresponds to one of the possible judicial instances, so appeals could be taken to the Supreme Court.
“Far from being a threat, the Tepesianos have lived under strict federal audit, complying with every legal requirement. Their continued presence in the system is irrefutable proof of their impeccable legal conduct,” the Foreign Ministry statement continues.
However, despite the legal measures that may be taken, this could give the green light for US forces to begin tracking, capturing, and deporting the nearly 51,000 Hondurans covered by TPS.
The post Newly-inaugurated Asfura failed to uphold TPS for Hondurans in Trump meet appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.
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