The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may consider giving undocumented Bangladeshis a temporary protected status (TPS), according to a letter written by USCIS Director Emilio T. Gonzalez, on behalf of DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, and sent to South Asian Network, a community-based organization dedicated to advancing the health, empowerment and solidarity of persons of South Asian origin.

Several years ago, the South Asian Network, in collaboration with Weekly Thikana, submitted an application to DHS, requesting to include Bangladeshis under the TPS program. Soon after, Bangladeshi Permanent Mission in Washington D.C and Bangladeshi Foreign Affairs Adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury backed the move by writing the U.S. State Department. In New York, the Bangladeshi community held conferences and to lobby further, a letter signed by Bangladeshi President Nargis Ahmed and General Secretary Zainul Abedin was sent to Capitol Hill.

On January 29, 2008, Congressman Joseph Crowley (D-NY) informed Thikana that Bangladeshi immigrants could possibly apply for the TPS program because their home country had been hit by two natural disasters – a catastrophic flood and a cyclone – that left thousands of people dead and homeless, with scarcity of food and drinking water rampant. Under circumstances, Crowley said, Bangladeshi immigrants, including the undocumented, could be eligible to apply, with the program lasting until Bangladesh is completely rebuilt.

The U.S. Congress, in 1991, ruled that the Secretary of the Homeland Security has the power to allow undocumented immigrants from any country that is ravaged by natural calamities or any other strife to stay indefinitely in the United States.