The Department of Homeland Security will allow people from the three Ebola-affected West African countries to stay in the U.S. temporarily, Reuters reported.
People from Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone who are living in the U.S. as of Thursday will be granted temporary protected status, department officials told Reuters.
They can apply for protection from deportation and for work permits for 18 months.
Those who arrive to the U.S. from the three countries after Thursday will not be eligible for the protected status.
An estimated 8,000 people will be eligible to apply, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service officials told Reuters.
West African nationals under the protected status will not be allowed to go home and return to the U.S. in a move designed to prevent the spread of the deadly virus.
More than 5,000 people have died of Ebola in the three countries most affected by the outbreak. Two Ebola patients have died in the U.S. Both contracted the disease in West Africa.
"The Ebola response in the United States has been front and center in the United States government at high levels," a Department of Homeland Security official told Reuters. "This designation has been part of that constant monitoring, reevaluation and reassessment of the appropriate response."