The nation is about to witness one of the most horrifying chapters in its history as Temporary Protected Status expires for more than 1 million lawfully present immigrants, federal legislators and immigrant rights activists warned Aug. 3
Chris Murphy
“This is an embarrassment for the United States of America,” said U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. “This is a country that proudly for generations made sure that we are a home for people fleeing terror and torture and certain death and natural disaster. That is frankly how many of us arrived here, how many of our families arrived here in the United States.”
Murphy was part of a lineup of speakers on a press call organized by the immigrant rights group FWD.us. The event coincided with the official termination of TPS for hundreds of thousands of Haitians, Syrians and Yeminis at the end of July, and with similar announcements pending for immigrants from more than 10 other countries.
The Trump administration has targeted TPS since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term but faced delays as courts around the country blocked the move.
TPS was created as part of a bipartisan effort during the George H.W. Bush administration to provide safe haven and work permits to immigrants fleeing natural disaster and persecution in their home countries.
Todd Schulte
“What we are seeing is a totally unprecedented revocation of immigration status,” FWD.us President Todd Schulte said. “There is no precedent for this in modern immigration history in the United States, whether it’s over 300,000 people who have lost status from Haiti from Syria from Yemen” or Afghanistan, Burma, El Salvador, Ukraine, Venezuela and the other nationalities now awaiting termination of status.
These are immigrants who entered the country legally and have dutifully maintained legal status, Schulte added. “They have done what’s been asked of them, and some of them have been here, in many cases, since the last century. Some of them arrived more recently and they were all building their lives here and we were all better because of that.”
Schulte and others on the call decried the June 25 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the Trump administration could begin dismantling TPS status.
Mullin v. Doe was an “outrageous” decision that “really betrays any sense of fairness,” especially the majority’s conclusion that Trump did not act out of racial animus against Black and brown people.
But the administration has claimed it’s OK to send TPS recipients home because the conditions in their countries of origin have improved. Former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem specifically declared Haiti, Syria and Yemen safe for returning immigrants.
Murphy said those claims are ridiculous. “Haiti hit a new record: Nearly 1.5 million people in that country have fled their homes as gangs continue to ravage large swaths of the country. In Yemen, the situation is even worse. There are 4.5 million people who are (displaced) … and civil war is at risk of breaking out again.”
Likewise in Syria and Venezuela “the situation is not stabilized; it is not getting better. It is getting worse,” he said. “And yet the Trump administration, with the support of a right-wing Supreme Court, has turned their back on those that are in the United States and will face potential death should they return to their countries. This is a moral abomination for this nation.”
Chris Van Hollen
The administration also betrays decades of bipartisan tradition with its attack on a program designed to ensure “we don’t force people back into danger, back into situations where their lives and their livelihoods are threatened,” said U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland.
Ending TPS is as economically catastrophic as it is immoral, Van Hollen said. “Many of (TPS holders) and their families have been here for decades and the notion that we’re going to uproot these families and force them back into dangerous places is unconscionable, and we need to do everything we can to stop it now.”
Efforts to preserve the temporary program include legislation introduced in Congress to extend TPS for Haitians. It has garnered bipartisan support in the House but has faced more opposition in the Senate, Van Hollen explained.
But Americans can do their part, too, by making “it clear during the upcoming elections that we do not want this to happen, this betrayal of our values on our watch, and we need to support candidates who are going to uphold America’s best principles.”
It’s important for Americans to realize that TPS preservation is about people as well as policy, said Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance.
“What we are experiencing right now is the largest removal of legal status in recent U.S. history, an attack on our very democracy an attack on life itself. This is not a political game — we are dealing with the lives of over 375,000 people who are at the brink of losing everything.