Geneva: UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk on Friday called on the United States to reconsider its decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for people fleeing Myanmar. "Given the situation it is also egregious for any State to forcibly return Myanmar nationals who had fled the country in fear. Against this backdrop of very serious human rights violations," Turk said in a statement issued from Geneva stressing the strict obligation to uphold the principle of non-refoulement.
According to Kuwait News Agency, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced on 25 November the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Myanmar, which currently benefits nearly 4,000 Myanmar nationals, effective 26 January 2026. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem justified the decision by claiming that conditions in Myanmar, including upcoming elections and a ceasefire, "no longer hinder the safe return" of its nationals.
In a separate statement, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, voiced grave concern over the U.S. decision, describing it as "an assault on human rights and human decency based on a cruel fiction that ignores overwhelming evidence of Myanmar's spiraling crisis." He warned, "Defying reality, this decision puts thousands at extreme risk while legitimizing a brutal regime that continues to use weapons of war to attack civilians."
Andrews further described the Secretary's reliance on the junta's pledge of holding "free and fair" elections as "deeply disturbing," stressing that "the sham polls being staged by the junta are nothing more than a charade to entrench military dominance." Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jeremy Laurence, told journalists in a media briefing in Geneva on Friday that the current environment in Myanmar does not allow for the holding of free, inclusive, or credible elections amid the ongoing armed conflict.
Laurence noted that the elections are taking place in an environment where the military is actively suppressing participation, with many major political parties excluded and more than 30,000 political opponents, including members of the democratically elected government and political representatives, detained since 2021. He also highlighted widespread discrimination in the electoral process, with Rohingya, Tamils, and Chinese, among others, excluded from voting.