Gov. Charlie Baker is asking the Trump Administration to let thousands of refugees from Haiti, El Salvador and Honduras to stay in the country.

The federal government is scheduled to decide early next year whether to extend temporary protected status for non-citizens from the three countries, each of which have been wracked by environmental or social disasters. If the Department of Homeland Security decides to end the protections, thousands of people will be forced to return to their homelands or stay in the U.S. illegally.

Baker sent a letter yesterday to acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke urging her to take into consideration what Baker called the ongoing crises going on in Haiti, El Salvador and Honduras. The governor wrote that those countries will only become more destabilized by the sudden influx of thousands of returning TPS nationals.

"I urge you to recognize the unsuitability of ordering tens of thousands of Haitians, Salvadorans and Hondurans now in the United States to return to homelands that are in crisis and that will be at risk of becoming further destabilized by a sudden influx of TPS nationals," Baker wrote.

Baker described the 5,000 Haitians, 6,000 Salvadorans and nearly 1,000 Hondurans in Massachusetts under TPS as hardworking and valuable to the economy.

At the State House, the Senate passed a resolution calling on the federal government to grant more time or legal status for the nationals.

"We're hopeful. It's always great to remain hopeful that this administration will do the right thing and really focus on the extension of TPS," Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry told WGBH.

Baker did not name a specific strategy for allowing the nationals to stay in the U.S., not did he explicitly endorse extending the TPS program. Instead, Baker asked Duke to find an alternate method of grant asylum.

Forry said officials at the state level can concentrate on services and aid for the thousands currently in Massachusetts.

"Not only is it 12,500-something individuals that have TPS, but it's really the impact on the families," Forry said.

"These are folks who've also had children who are American, who live here, born and raised here, and so what happens to these children?" Forry asked.