President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is redesignating and extending a temporary amnesty program to more than 15,000 Ethiopian nationals living in the United States who would otherwise be eligible for deportation.

On Friday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for about 15,100 Ethiopians in the United States who can secure work permits, hold American jobs, and be shielded from deportation.

“Temporary Protected Status provides individuals already present in the United States with protection from removal when conditions in their home country prevent their safe return,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement:

That is the situation facing Ethiopians who arrived here on or before April 11 of this year. We are granting them protection through this temporary form of humanitarian relief that the law provides. [Emphasis added]

About 2,300 Ethiopians in the United States can retain their TPS designation and extend it through December 2025, while an additional 12,800 Ethiopians will become eligible for TPS to stay in the U.S. so long as they tell DHS officials they have been in the country since April 11 or before.

In addition, Mayorkas announced so-called “Special Student Relief” for Ethiopians who are in the United States on F-1 student visas, “so that eligible students may request employment authorization, work an increased number of hours while school is in session, and reduce their course load while continuing to maintain F-1 status through the TPS designation period.”

TPS was first created under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990 (INA) and prevents federal immigration officials from deporting people from countries that are designated as experiencing famine, war, or natural disasters.

Since the Clinton administration, TPS has been transformed into a de facto amnesty program as the Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, and now Biden administrations have continuously renewed the program for a variety of countries.

As Breitbart News reported, Biden has massively ballooned the number of foreign nationals residing in the United States without any immigration status except having TPS. Today, nearly 1.2 million foreign nationals are in the U.S. on TPS.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.