As the Biden administration faces accusations of being too slow to help Palestinian Americans and their families trapped in Gaza, we speak with Narmin Abushaban in Detroit whose mother died from lack of medical care while waiting to leave Gaza. She is working now to rescue the rest of her family members. This comes as calls grow for the U.S. to grant temporary protected status (TPS) to…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The call came at 4 am. Emmanuel Tabili immediately leapt out of bed, jolted awake by the thought of trouble in his home country of Cameroon, 8,000 miles away in west Africa. He was relieved to recognize a work number. It was a colleague in the struggle to gain Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for almost 40,000 Cameroonians living in the U.S., telling him to get ready for some good news for a change. April 15 would be a day to remember.
“They said it looks like there’s some action, like it’s going to be positive, and that inside sources said it was going to be approved,” he told Truthout. TPS, which was created by Congress in the Immigration Act of 1990, was Tabili’s (and the activists who preceded him) prized goal because those who gain it become authorized to work in the U.S., are free to travel and, most significantly, are protected from deportation.
A few months after winning his own asylum case in 2018, Tabili went to work for Haitian Bridge Alliance in southern California as an advocate for Haitian and Liberian migrants. After two years, his experience led him to help form the Cameroon Advocacy Network (CAN), which was launched as an offshoot of Haitian Bridge Alliance with cofounders Guerline Jozef and Daniel Tse last year. Since then, he’s crossed state lines to Washington, D.C. 20 times to impress his message on officials and to speak at rallies as an “impacted person.”
Within two hours of that 4 am phone call, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) issued a press release in which he announced that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas had promised that TPS for Cameroonians was going forward. Van Hollen, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy, had written two bicameral letters to President Biden in recent months — the first with Rep. Karen Bass (D-California) in November and another with Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) on March 23 — calling for TPS for Cameroonians.
Encouraged by the morning’s momentum, nonetheless, Tabili stayed cool. “I didn’t want to be rash about it,” he said, “because there were other times I had raised my hopes, even prepared a thank you message, but it never got released.”
The last such occasion was a month earlier when the quick action taken by the administration on TPS for Afghans and Ukrainians made advocates’ complaints of anti-Black bias in the dispensing of immigration protections all too credible. After a full-court press on what they thought were all the right levers, taken in concert with their partner organizations — Haitian Bridge Alliance, CASA, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, United Africa Organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Amnesty International USA — they were so close they could smell the whiff of victory.
“But at the last minute, the administration took a total U-turn,” he recalled, “and it killed our dream.” CAN and the partner organizations may never know precisely why things went south, though some now surmise it may have been related to secret talks between the government of Cameroon and Russia about forming an alliance. A defense pact signed on April 12 recently made public might explain the reversal. At the time, Tabili says there was frustration and anger toward the administration for abandoning them and leaving them in the dark as to why. “We felt demoralized because we have been fighting for this for so long.”
Advocates in the U.S. saw the need for TPS for Cameroonians starting in 2016, as tensions between English- and French-speaking forces escalated into open conflict. Tabili explained that in the first year of the conflict, more than 50,000 people were internally displaced, and in the second year, the number rose to 300,000; now it is over a million. A small number of these people made the arduous and dangerous trek to the U.S. In 2016, only 115 refugees from Cameroon were granted asylum, per the Office of Immigration Statistics Annual Flow Report, increasing to 218 in 2017. This was before Tabili came to realize he, too, would have to leave his country. He has since led a full-blown human rights effort to extend the protection that TPS should provide universally to his countrymen forced out by multiple regional conflicts painstakingly documented by Human Rights Watch in a terrifying report.
“The difficulties of the journey from Cameroon test your humanity, test every part of you,” Tabili said. “You go through countries where you don’t speak the language, where you are assaulted, maybe raped. Your property is stolen, you experience racist slurs, all of this, just in the hopes of making it to the U.S.” Holding degrees in both political science and foreign relations and diplomacy, and being involuntarily schooled in the cruelty of the U.S. immigration system during 11 months of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention in Georgia, Tabili was both primed for the policy battle and steeled against the system’s resistance to change, no matter how just.
Fueling his anxiety on the morning of April 15, the press release from DHS scheduled for release at 9 am, was delayed. Tabili recalled that it was only when it was posted two hours later that he allowed himself to feel the elation of victory — with a stroke of a pen, every Cameroonian foreign national already in the U.S. on April 14, 2022, was now eligible to apply for TPS. If granted, they can enjoy the protections for 18 months from the date DHS publishes notice in the Federal Register.
Cameroonians who come seeking asylum after April 14, 2022, will not be eligible for TPS, but Tabili thinks given the humanitarian turn, a few may feel encouraged to try anyway. Colleagues in D.C. did pop a bottle of champagne, but as with any longed-for change, no matter how positive, when it finally arrives, it’s often tinged with a taste of the bittersweet. Granting TPS to Cameroonians was a political decision that could have come at any time, and as the years dragged on the human costs mounted.
“I don’t know how I can really describe the emotions that came with it, because the delay in TPS for [Cameroonians] had cost countless lives. Those we know and those that we don’t know,” he explained. “The people that were deported, we cannot account for many of them.”
In August 2021, Truthout spoke to a Cameroonian asylum seeker, Divine Tikum Kem, who had been forcibly deported from Louisiana and was the subject of a formal complaint brought against DHS, the Department of Justice, ICE, and other officials by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative. Kem said then: “I lost my fight [referring to his deportation]. Today, whatever we are fighting for is for other people not to be terrorized by what we went through — that no other Black migrant should go through this again in this century. I believe my cry can be heard; I pray my voice will not cease.”
Tabili’s thoughts were also with the Cameroonians still scattered throughout the country held in ICE detention, a number he estimates to be somewhere between 300 to 600. Secretary Mayorkas’s announcement did not speak to their fates. A request to Sarah Loicano, the ICE public affairs officer in New Orleans, for information on their number, status under TPS, and plans for their release went unanswered by press time. On background, a reliable source informed us that the process remains the same: detainees (through an attorney) or sponsoring relatives can request supervised release from ICE.
“It also hurts, you know, to think of all the people who have been living in fear,” Tabili added, “and who have not been fully productive because someday someone could knock on your door and take everything from you, and send you back to the misery you came from.”
Returning to the moment a month prior when the advocates were demoralized, CAN and the partner organizations met to discuss next steps. Tabili remembers they spoke freely, venting their frustration and anger at what they felt was the administration’s hypocrisy. The energy was deflated, even depressed, and he was as tired as everyone else. But giving up would mean turning off the lights and hopes of the Cameroonians who needed protection and saw CAN’s platform as the stepping stone to get there. A gut-level political instinct kicked in, and he reached back to prior generations for a spark of inspiration.
“My grandmom Lya used to say that things get really difficult when there is a significant breakthrough,” he remembers telling others at the meeting. “And it is usually very easy for people to give up at that point. But I want to remind you that we have come a long way, and we shall not waste our good efforts because the administration is in denial. We will braze up and fight again like never before.”
According to a fact sheet published by the Pew Research Center in January 2022, Biden’s large immigration bill includes a proposal for a somewhat streamlined path to citizenship for TPS recipients: “The proposal would allow TPS holders who meet certain conditions to apply for citizenship three years after receiving a green card, which is two years earlier than usual for green-card holders.”
Knowing how quickly a year and a half can pass, CAN views the 18 months as a starting point that gives the administration time to figure out what to do next. What they want and will be working toward is a clear path to citizenship for all TPS holders.
“It would be unfair if after 18 months people were sent back to the same conditions they fled,” says Tabili.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
During the first four months of fiscal year 2022 (October 1, 2021, to January 31, 2022), more than 6,000 asylum seekers from Ukraine and Russia were apprehended at U.S. border crossings and deported. Then, in late February, Russia invaded Ukraine and, virtually overnight, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shifted gears to accommodate the influx of Ukrainians who began showing up at the U.S.-Mexico border. In fact, whether arriving on foot and in cars, most were allowed in and given “humanitarian parole.”
But not all displaced people have entered through Mexico. Many have flown into the U.S. as “tourists” from Europe, landing in places where they have family or friends and hoping to file an asylum application once they regroup.
Sue Fox is the executive director of the Shorefront YM-YWHA in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, an area populated by thousands of immigrants from countries that once comprised the USSR. Many families from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus are arriving in Brooklyn with their children, she told Truthout — and so far, there are scant resources to meet their needs.
“The biggest issue is housing, putting a roof over their heads, but apartments are very expensive,” Fox said. “These are folks who had a middle or upper-middle-class life in Ukraine and they don’t know what to do now that they’re here. Many have families, but their families don’t always have resources to give them.”
In response, Fox says that she and her staff have been scrambling to help newcomers access available health care, register kids in school, and connect them with food pantries, mental health resources and legal assistance.
It’s been difficult, Fox admits, because so much remains unknown.
“It’s difficult not to be able to provide answers,” Fox said. “But there are no answers yet. We don’t know what the procedures will be for people who want to apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS)” or other immigration safeguards.
This, despite the March announcement by the Biden administration that the U.S. will accept 100,000 refugees fleeing Ukraine, donate $1 billion to help European nations accommodate the influx of people displaced by the war, and add Ukraine to the roster of 13 countries whose residents are eligible for TPS. This status is given to individuals forced to emigrate because of ongoing armed conflicts, large-scale environmental disasters, or “extraordinary and temporary conditions” in their home countries. According to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, 75,100 Ukrainians who were in the U.S. on or before March 1, 2022, will be able to apply for TPS. This will permit them to stay in the country and work for up to 18 months. The actual process for applying, however, needs to be outlined in the Federal Register and as of mid-April, this has not yet been done.
“It’s a confusing mess,” Jodi Ziesemer, director of the NY Legal Assistance Group, a provider of free legal services to low-income people, told Truthout. “There’s been a disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality. On one hand, the U.S. is telling Ukrainians that the country is extending TPS to them so they expect benefits. But these benefits are not actually available to them.”
This is not the only glitch that troubles Ziesemer. Policies for those coming into the country from the southern border — as well as for those entering the U.S. from Canada — are inconsistent, she says, so different protocols are being applied depending on which government authorities, CBP or ICE agents a person sees. “There is great confusion,” she adds.
The unofficial policy, she explains, is for Ukrainians to be given humanitarian parole at the border, which enables them to enter the country and work. But parole is not a direct path to a green card or citizenship, and those given this authorization will need to file an asylum application within one year of arriving. This creates barriers, particularly for refugees who don’t know English. While there is no fee to file a claim, the 12-page form — which must be filled out in English — is cumbersome and usually requires the assistance of a trained advocate to complete. Necessary paperwork to substantiate claims may also be required — and be difficult to access for those who fled with little more than the clothes on their backs.
“It’s frustrating,” Ziesemer said. “People are returning to Europe because it’s easier for them to be in the EU, where they can live and work for up to three years. We’re trying to advise people as best we can, but there’s a lot of misinformation about what the U.S. is doing and offering.”
Ginger Cline is a staff attorney at the Border Rights Project of Al Otro Lado, and has been working in Tijuana, Mexico, since 2020. People from the Ukrainian and Russian communities in nearby San Diego, California, have helped set up porta-potties, tents and food stations for recent arrivals coming into Tijuana, she told Truthout. “CBP is coordinating with the Mexican police to bring a certain number of Ukrainians to the port of entry every hour,” she said, adding that priority is given to families with young children and those with serious medical needs.
This is in sharp contrast to the way asylum seekers from other countries are treated, she says. For one, until mid-April, Title 42, a policy enacted by the Trump administration in March 2020, barred all but a handful of asylum seekers from entering the U.S., purportedly as a way to control the spread of COVID. “Title 42 gave CBP discretion, but was used to deny entry to almost everyone wanting to apply for asylum,” Cline said. “This changed when Ukrainians began to arrive and the government announced that Title 42 was being waived for them.”
Cline describes the special treatment afforded Ukrainians as having a devastating impact on people from other nations. “Of course, Ukrainians should be welcomed into the U.S. and given the opportunity to apply for asylum,” she said. “It’s horrifying to see this war of aggression, but there are non-white people from other countries — including Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras and Somalia — who have been waiting at the border to apply for asylum for more than two years. They need protection, too.”
Cline notes other disparities as well. Among them, CBP is allowing entire Ukrainian families to enter the U.S. together, something that is often denied to people from other countries. She describes assisting a man from Haiti who was extremely ill with HIV and had been traveling with his niece and nephew. “When we got him to the port of entry, he was approved for admission but his family members were not,” Cline said. “I’ve seen this brutality repeatedly. We’ve seen kids ripped from a grandmother’s arms, allowed to enter with their mom while grandma and an aunt are denied. It’s heartbreaking. Every member of the household suffered the same trauma that brought them to the border. It’s simply cruel to let some people in and not others.”
Jessica Bolter, policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, attributes the U.S.’s favoring of Ukrainians to a lingering Cold War residue. “U.S. decisions about who wins asylum cases have been deeply political for decades,” she said. “There are still echoes of Cold War thinking in the asylum system, so people fleeing countries that were once communist still have an increased chance of being admitted. Even before the Russian invasion, the asylum grant rate for Ukrainians was 66 percent. It was 77 percent for Russians. This is much higher than it is for people of other nationalities.”
Not surprisingly, advocates have recommendations for changing this and improving the treatment of refugees from Ukraine and other countries.
Naomi Steinberg, vice president of U.S. policy and advocacy at HIAS (formerly the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), argues that family reunification should form the cornerstone of the U.S. response to the refugee crisis. While many Ukrainians will opt to stay in Europe until the crisis ends, she says, “there is a subset for whom staying in Europe is not the best option. People who have family in the U.S. should be allowed to enter through an expanded refugee resettlement program, rather than given humanitarian parole.” This is preferable, she says, because those entering through refugee resettlement, “are automatically eligible for a green card in a year. They are also eligible for resettlement services. Humanitarian parole requires them to apply for asylum, a process that is complicated.”
Similarly, Steinberg recognizes that while TPS gives people “some breathing room,” like humanitarian parole, it has to be renewed. To be successful, she continues, people usually need legal counsel, which can be expensive.
Other roadblocks and bureaucratic snafus — a result of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies — are also becoming increasingly apparent. Advocates say that by the time Donald Trump left office, the country’s resettlement programs were in shambles and the Biden administration has still not done what’s needed to get things back up and running.
Kelly Agnew-Barajas, director of refugee resettlement at Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of New York, describes overwhelmed advocates who are trying to reopen the 320 local refugee resettlement agencies that were shuttered in 2018 following Trump’s slashing of the annual refugee quota from 110,000 in 2017 to 15,000 in 2020.
This lack of infrastructure, Agnew-Barajas points out, has exacerbated the current crisis. Nonetheless, she is pleased that at least some Ukrainians (and a smaller number of Russians and Belarusians) are being paroled in. Still, she stresses that even before Ukrainians began streaming into the U.S., the country faced a significant processing backlog.
“The 76,000 Afghan refugees admitted to the country in 2021 have still not been fully resettled,” Agnew-Barajas told Truthout. “There is a lot of nervousness in the advocacy community because 5,000 additional Afghans will be arriving before September. This is on top of the regular flood of immigrants coming from other countries. The process for Afghan arrivals has been very, very difficult. We need to plan for Ukrainian arrivals. We need resources and emergency supplies.”
Stacy Caplow, professor of law and associate dean of experiential education at Brooklyn Law School, agrees. The fact that people all over the world are languishing in refugee camps waiting to be resettled, she says, underscores the urgency of the situation.
At the same time, she notes that those admitted into the U.S. on humanitarian parole have a marked advantage. “If you are already in the U.S., you can apply for asylum and go through the adjudication system. You go to court and see a judge who determines if you meet eligibility for admission under the law. It usually takes a long time, but if there is the will, the time can be shortened,” Caplow said. This was done for Afghan evacuees. Others, in refugee camps in places like Kenya, “have been waiting for 10 years to begin the process.”
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Human rights activists on Friday applauded the Biden administration’s decision to allow tens of thousands of immigrants from war-torn Cameroon to temporarily live and work in the United States as a victory won by years of Black-led organizing.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Friday designated Cameroon for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), allowing an estimated 11,700 people living in the United States as of Thursday to remain in the country for 18 months.
“The United States recognizes the ongoing armed conflict in Cameroon, and we will provide temporary protection to those in need,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. “Cameroonian nationals currently residing in the U.S. who cannot safely return due to the extreme violence perpetrated by government forces and armed separatists, and a rise in attacks led by Boko Haram, will be able to remain and work in the United States until conditions in their home country improve.”
BREAKING NEWS: TPS Is designated for Cameroon!
— Cameroon Advocacy Network (@CamAdvocacy) April 15, 2022
Guerline Jozef, co-founder of the Haitian Bridge Alliance and the Cameroonian Advocacy Network, welcomed “this much needed and overdue announcement from the Biden administration.”
“We rejoice and celebrate with our Cameroonian siblings who after a long-fought battle can finally breathe a sigh of relief… We are grateful for all our partner organizations and allies who pushed hard to get this victory; this is another example of ‘anpil men, chay pa lou,’” she added, referring to a Haitian Creole proverb meaning “many hands lighten the load.”
This was made possible by the leadership of Black led orgs who’ve been organizing for *years* to make this victory happen! Organizing works! Congratulations! https://t.co/yqGjGcNn6e
— United We Dream (@UNITEDWEDREAM) April 15, 2022
In a testimonial published by a coalition of human rights groups, one directly impacted Cameroonian said:
I was tortured and detained twice in my country Cameroon because I spoke against the government. I was raped by the Cameroon military force at least twice a week during my two months in their custody. The military shot and killed my father at my second arrest.
I was detained in a [U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement] jail for over one year, where I was abused and treated badly by ICE. Death or life imprisonment awaits me if I am deported back to Cameroon because the Cameroonian military is still looking for me.
This designation of Temporary Protected Status will literally save my life and relinquishes my daily fear of being deported every time I see a police officer.
Over the past six years, thousands of Cameroonians have been killed and hundreds of thousands more have been displaced amid a war between government forces and separatist groups in two Anglophone regions of the Central African nation. Hundreds of thousands of people in the Francophone regions have also been displaced due to violence.
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is a temporary immigration status provided to nationals of certain countries experiencing problems that make it difficult or unsafe for their nationals to be deported to those countries.
Read our fact sheet on TPS here: https://t.co/B5E03pYos4
— American Immigration Council (@immcouncil) April 15, 2022
Meanwhile, the Islamist militant group Boko Haram has escalated attacks in the far northern part of the country, and the government’s response has been plagued by human rights violations including unlawful killings and arbitrary arrests.
While many displaced Cameroonians have fled to neighboring nations — mainly Nigeria — thousands have also traveled to Latin America and then the southern U.S. border to seek asylum. However, in March 2020 the administration of former President Donald Trump barred nearly all asylum-seekers by invoking Title 42, a provision of the Public Health Safety Act, under the pretext of the Covid-19 pandemic. Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced it would end Title 42 deportations in May following immense pressure from rights groups.
Cameroonians migrants have described violent and abusive treatment at the hands of U.S. immigration authorities, including while in ICE detention and during deportation.
Advocates have contrasted the relative speed — less than 10 days — with which the administration granted TPS to Ukrainians following Russia’s February 24 invasion to the yearslong struggle to secure protected status for Cameroonians, an effort that began during Trump’s tenure.
“We have been fighting for a very long time to get TPS for Cameroon,” Jozef told The New York Times. “The way the U.S. was able to quickly provide protection for Ukrainians while denying protection for Black and Brown vulnerable people is a proof of a double standard.”
Daniel Tse, a co-founder of the Cameroonian Advocacy Network, said in a statement that “as history has taught us, when it comes to Black immigrants, there’s always retaliation, reluctance, and relegation involved. Given that this is the system that we work within, the fight is not over yet! We will continue to work with our allies and push for humanitarian parole for those unjustly deported.”
Calling DHS’ decision to protect Cameroonians “exactly the kind of action America should take to protect people from violence and persecution,” Douglas Rivlin, communications director at the immigration reform group America’s Voice, asserted that “the Biden administration should be more aggressive in asserting their vision for defending immigration and immigrants and should build on today’s positive news.”
“The White House should prioritize further executive branch actions and announce TPS designations and redesignations for countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and additional nations,” he added. “These are important tools to stabilize families and communities, deliver meaningful progress, and advance America’s interests and values.”
As the Russian onslaught against Ukraine intensified last week, 42 senators asked the Biden administration to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to the tens of thousands of Ukrainians currently living in the U.S. on temporary visas.
TPS, which was created by Congress in 1990, has, over the decades since then, been used to offer temporary residency and work permits to people already in the U.S. from a country deemed too dangerous or chaotic to return to safely. In recent years, it has mainly been utilized by people fleeing political and gang violence in Central America.
The request to extend TPS to Ukrainians was marketed as “bipartisan,” but in reality all but two of the senators who supported it were Democrats. Yet, even though few Republicans signed the letter requesting an extension of TPS, support for Ukrainians fleeing the Russian attack does seem to be genuinely widespread throughout both major political parties. Only a handful of Republican legislators have pushed back against expressions of support for Ukrainian people in the face of military attacks from Russia.
Three days after the letter was sent, on March 3, the Biden administration announced that it would, indeed, extend the TPS program, which the senators estimated would cover roughly 30,000 Ukrainians who were in the country as of March 1. Since TPS was not designed as a formal part of the refugee resettlement program, however, it wouldn’t cover arrivals after March 1, meaning the huge numbers of Ukrainians now fleeing by train, bus, car and on foot into refugee camps in eastern Europe will likely have to go through a much longer resettlement process if they want to eventually end up in the United States. They will, however, in the coming years almost certainly face an easier pathway into the country than did the waves of refugees from the Syrian civil war during the Trump presidency.
The growing consensus in the U.S. and in Europe — that Western countries have a moral obligation to help Ukrainian refugees fleeing the artillery, missile and tank bombardment — is a welcome one.
But it is a travesty that the U.S. has not extended the same welcome to Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, Yemenis, Central Americans, and others fleeing mass violence — either state-sponsored or at the hands of cartels — desperate poverty and societal collapse.
As several commentators have already noted, many Republicans who are currently calling for the U.S. to welcome in Ukrainians supported Trump’s zero-admissions policies against Syrians, Iraqis and Yemenis, and also supported Trump’s efforts to uproot TPS protections for Hondurans, El Salvadorans and Haitians.
Last week, Maribel Hastings and David Torres of the pro-immigration reform organization America’s Voice, wrote a scathing op-ed in Spanish about the hypocrisy of GOP legislators who waged war on TPS throughout the Trump years and yet are now loudly advocating its use during this crisis. “In the recent past,” the authors wrote, “they have done everything in their power to ensure that immigrants from communities of color are not welcomed but rather, the contrary. They want sufficient obstacles to be put in place to dissuade them from coming to the United States, despite the fact that decades of violence in their countries is the most latent threat to their lives and the lives of their families.”
The U-turn regarding refugees from Ukraine also stands in stunning contrast to the ways in which much of Europe, in recent years, battened down its hatches against Syrian and Afghan migrants — the former suffering unspeakable atrocities at the hands of President Bashar al-Assad and the Russian army on the one side, and Islamic fundamentalist groups such as ISIS on the other; and the latter caught between the violence of a U.S.-led occupation and the cruelty of a Taliban insurgency. Europe also went out of its way to clamp down on asylum seekers fleeing violence from elsewhere in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
As recently as November, Poland sent heavily armed border guards to stop Afghan refugees from crossing into its territory. From 2015 on, as the Syrian refugee crisis escalated, Hungary tear-gassed, imprisoned and otherwise brutalized refugee men, women and children. Denmark made life so inhospitable to refugees that last year, barely 1,500 people applied to stay in the country under that designation. In the U.K., Boris Johnson’s xenophobic government has spent the past several years designing ever-harsher legislation intended to criminalize and to punish asylum seekers.
Now, suddenly, these same countries are absorbing lighter-skinned Ukrainian refugees without activating the same policing regimes they generally deploy against refugees of color. At the same time, however, Africans and Asians who had been living within Ukraine, and often studying at universities there, are reporting racist treatment and barriers both within Ukraine and in some of the countries they are fleeing to. The disparity in how the welcome mat is rolled out, depending on the color of one’s skin and the country of one’s origin, continues even under bombardment.
Already, close to 2 million Ukrainians have crossed into neighboring countries. Many remain in those borderlands: in Poland — where over 1 million arrivals are being processed — in Romania, Moldova, Hungary and Slovakia. Others are continuing their journey westward. Germany, in particular, has, as it did at the start of the Syrian refugee crisis, once again opened its doors to those fleeing conflict. In France, even the fascist, anti-immigrant National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who previously was a die-hard fan of Vladimir Putin’s, has advocated taking in refugees from the war.
Could these shifts signal a flicker of more universally humanistic empathy from politicians in the U.S. and Europe? If so, it is as of yet only a flicker. In the U.S., deportations under the guise of public health continue under Title 42, despite the March 4 court ruling that narrows its use. In Denmark, the country continues in its efforts to deport Syrian refugees. In Australia, the anti-immigrant government continues to hold asylum seekers in a network of detention centers, albeit in lower numbers than was the case a few years ago. And across much of Europe, governments continue to crack down on aid organizations that provide assistance to those seeking asylum.
It remains to be seen whether many of these countries will, over the coming years, prove willing to alter entrenched racist practices to extend a similar empathy to more racially marginalized refugees who have lost everything at the hands of the powerful.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is offering Ukrainians in the U.S. a form of humanitarian relief as Vladimir Putin’s invasion is ongoing.
The agency is adding Ukraine to the list of countries from which people can benefit from Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 18 months, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced on Thursday. Ukrainians in the country, including undocumented immigrants and those on tourist, student or business visas could benefit. In order to benefit, people must have been residing in the U.S. since at least March 1, 2022.
“Russia’s premeditated and unprovoked attack on Ukraine has resulted in an ongoing war, senseless violence, and Ukrainians forced to seek refuge in other countries,” said Mayorkas in a statement. “In these extraordinary times, we will continue to offer our support and protection to Ukrainian nationals in the United States.”
DHS estimates that about 71,500 Ukrainians in the U.S. will benefit from the TPS designation, including the roughly 4,000 Ukrainians who are facing deportation hearings. The administration has also paused deportation flights to the region.
TPS designation is given to people from countries that have been deemed unsafe for them to return to, whether for environmental, political, or other reasons. There are currently about 400,000 people living in the U.S. under TPS. However, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling last year, residents under TPS don’t currently have a pathway to permanent residence, even though some TPS holders have been living in the U.S. for decades.
Other countries announced similar measures to grant protection to Ukrainian refugees on Thursday. The United Nations estimates that about 1 million Ukrainians have fled the country so far, and that the invasion could end up displacing 10 million Ukrainians in total.
The announcement came after lawmakers sent a letter to President Joe Biden earlier this week asking him to grant TPS status to Ukrainians. “Ukraine clearly meets the standard for TPS,” the lawmakers wrote, citing the “ongoing armed conflict.”
Both Democrats and Republicans praised the TPS designation. “The world has watched a humanitarian crisis grow as over a million Ukrainians flee their homes for safety. Thank you [Biden and Mayorkas] for heeding our call for TPS,” wrote Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-New York) on Thursday. “Let this be a model for our treatment of refugees in need of humanitarian support in all parts of the world.”
Immigration advocates have pointed out that while Biden has been quick to move to protect Ukrainians, he hasn’t put countries like Cameroon on the list, despite the fact that advocates have been pleading with the administration to do so for months. People deported to Cameroon face violence and abuse as the West African country undergoes major political unrest.
“It is evidence of anti-blackness and discrimination toward Black immigrants,” Daniel Tse, founder of the Cameroon Advocacy Network, told The New York Times.
There has also been growing frustration among progressives and immigration advocates about the Biden administration’s abuse of Haitian asylum seekers, who the administration has been deporting en masse despite the fact that Haiti is designated as a TPS country.
Many progressives say that while Ukrainians should be welcomed to the U.S. with open arms, refugees from other countries should be extended the same protection, regardless of race. “We must respond to the crisis in Ukraine with compassion,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts) wrote on Thursday. “That means designating Ukraine for TPS, opening our doors to refugees and providing these same protections to refugees from Africa, Middle East, Latin America, Asia, LGBTQ communities and more.”
On Tuesday night, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) argued in favor of accepting Ukrainian refugees in the United States, emphasizing that asylum seekers from other parts of the world should be treated with similar respect.
Speaking to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow following President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address, Ocasio-Cortez made the case for giving Ukrainian refugees Temporary Protection Status (TPS), saying that the Biden White House should make it easier for individuals with that status to eventually become citizens.
“Now that we know a huge, new migration is going to start because of that war, do you have caution or words of advice … in terms of how to be smarter about those politics, about the inevitable demonization of those victimized people?” Maddow asked the New York congresswoman.
“The world is watching, and many immigrants and refugees are watching,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “How the world treats Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees should be how we are treating all refugees in the United States, especially when you look at such stark juxtapositions where so many of the factors are in common.”
Citing the Syrian refugee crisis, Ocasio-Cortez said that “the way the world treated Syrian refugees versus the way the world is greeting Ukrainian refugees is a very stark contrast.” She also condemned U.S. policy toward asylum seekers from Central America and Haiti under Biden and past administrations.
“We really need to make sure that, when we talk about accepting refugees, that we are meaning it, for everybody, no matter where you come from,” she added.
Ocasio-Cortez also said that the current crisis presents “an opportunity” to make things better for all future asylum seekers coming to the U.S. Ukrainian refugees should receive TPS status, she said — and Congress and the president should make it easier for individuals who receive TPS status to become citizens, if they want to do so. This should apply not only to Ukrainians but also to other asylum seekers, she went on.
Journalist Juan Escalante, who was once himself an undocumented immigrant, said that Ocasio-Cortez “is 100% correct.”
The crisis in Ukraine could “push Biden to grant #TPS to Ukrainians in the United States,” as well as “push Congress to deliver a path to citizenship for all TPS recipients — including Venezuela, Haiti, Honduras, etc.,” Escalante said.
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine will undoubtedly result in a refugee crisis. According to estimates from the United Nations, as of Tuesday, more than 874,000 Ukrainians have already fled the country, crossing their country’s border into neighboring areas.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and other Democratic leaders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and 90 other Democratic House colleagues urged the Senate to add immigration reform proposals that were previously cut from the Build Back Better Act back into the bill.
The lawmakers are advocating for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, including Dreamers, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, and farm and essential workers. The reconciliation bill passed by the House provides opportunities for temporary work visas and deportation relief for undocumented people, but no permanent solutions for them.
“When Congress promises ‘immigration reform,’ as it has done throughout the negotiation process, our party must fully deliver on that promise,” the lawmakers wrote. “For decades, immigrants have sought relief from the precarity of jumping from one temporary status to another in the only country they can call home. Another temporary status would merely extend this precarity.”
Without pathways to citizenship enshrined into law, the lives of the millions of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are often left to the whims of different presidential administrations and employers.
While Republican presidents have more openly used racist rhetoric against immigrants, Democratic presidents are often not “pro-immigrant” as the party purports to be; Joe Biden, for instance, has dramatically increased the number of immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under his tenure, and deported asylum seekers at the southern border en masse, many of them to Haiti, which is experiencing mass political and environmental instability. Human rights experts and former State Department employees have slammed Biden’s deportations as inhumane and immoral. And under Barack Obama, over 2.5 million people were deported — more than any in U.S. history.
Democratic staff are meeting with the parliamentarian on Tuesday to discuss the current immigration proposal in the bill.
Lawmakers cut the citizenship pathway proposal from the bill when, in September, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that it would not have a significant impact on the budget. Proposals must be relevant to the federal budget to be included in the budget reconciliation process, which allows the Senate to pass bills through a simple majority vote.
Contrary to the parliamentarian’s ruling, however, reports by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and economists say that immigration reform does affect the budget significantly; not only would the proposal move the country’s immigration policies in a more humane direction, but it would also have significant and positive impacts on the economy, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Whether or not Democrats decide to include the proposal is “a question of political will,” the letter read. “We do understand that the Senate Parliamentarian has issued a memorandum dismissing — despite evidence to the contrary — the budgetary impact of providing a pathway to citizenship,” the lawmakers continued. “But the role of the Parliamentarian is an advisory one, and the Parliamentarian’s opinion is not binding.”
Indeed, the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling on the budget reconciliation process can be overturned by the vice president. Progressives pointed this out earlier this year when the parliamentarian said that a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour couldn’t fit into the reconciliation process, despite evidence showing otherwise. The Biden administration was opposed to bucking the parliamentarian’s recommendation at the time, much to progressive lawmakers’ chagrin.
Democrats have another option at their disposal if they’re dedicated to including the immigration reform proposals: They could replace the parliamentarian with someone else, which is what Republicans did in 2001 in order to pass a series of tax cuts under George W. Bush. However, this process may be lengthy, and lawmakers say they are eager to pass the bill soon.
It could be beneficial to Democrats politically if they chose to add the immigration proposals back in. Though much of the public is likely unaware of the archaic and obscure laws regarding budget reconciliation, polling has found that a majority of the public is in favor of creating pathways to citizenship for Dreamers, TPS holders and undocumented workers. 80 percent of Democrats, 71 percent of independents and 55 percent of Republicans support such a proposal, Data For Progress found earlier this year.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
On Monday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez urged for the Democrats’ reconciliation package to include citizenship pathways for immigrants like Dreamers and those in the U.S. under humanitarian visas.
Noting that “countless” constituents who have Temporary Protected Status (TPS) have reached out to her, Ocasio-Cortez said, “I have the privilege of calling these individuals constituents entirely thanks to their courage and determination in risking their lives to escape treacherous conditions of environmental disasters, violence and corruption back home.”
TPS holders are allowed to stay in the U.S. as long as the countries that they immigrate from are deemed too unsafe to return to. There are an estimated over 400,000 TPS holders in the U.S., many of whom are from El Salvador after earthquakes devastated the country’s economy 20 years ago.
Though many TPS holders have been living in the U.S. for decades, their path to citizenship is limited, meaning that they could face deportation if the U.S. deems it safe for them to return to the countries they immigrated from. In June, the Supreme Court handed a major blow to TPS holders and immigrant advocates when it ruled that TPS holders are not all in the country lawfully, severely limiting their ability to apply for permanent residency, or a green card.
As Ocasio-Cortez noted, more than 40,800 TPS holders live in New York. “Today, the U.S. is their only refuge and their only home,” she said. “They have lived in the U.S. for decades, becoming part of the backbone of our local and national economies. While TPS has allowed them to stay in the U.S., it has also put their lives perpetually in limbo, as TPS holders must wait every few months to find out if the program has been renewed.”
The congresswoman also pointed out that the reconciliation process is a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to create more citizenship pathways for immigrants — which she argues is the least the U.S. can do, considering the role the country has played in creating political instability in many of these countries and in accelerating climate disasters.
Democrats have proposed including pathways to citizenship for Dreamers, TPS holders and essential workers like farmworkers. This week, the immigration proposals face scrutiny from the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate parliamentarian, who recommends whether or not a particular provision fits within the budget reconciliation process. A proposal must have a significant impact on the U.S. budget in order to be deemed fit for reconciliation.
Democrats presented their argument for including the immigration proposals to the parliamentarian last week, and a decision could come as soon as this week. The parliamentarian’s decision isn’t final, however. Democratic leadership could still decide to ignore her recommendation, which they chose not to do in the spring, when Congress was considering Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vermont) $15 federal minimum wage proposal.
Advocates have argued that immigration reform is “a perfect fit” for the reconciliation process. As Marshall Fitz wrote for Roll Call, “Irrefutably, enabling immigrants to earn permanent residence has a clear and significant budgetary impact, primarily by allowing a new class of people to become eligible for public benefits and services.”
Fitz pointed out that the Congressional Budget Office found that the Dream and Promise Act, which would allow Dreamers and TPS holders to be granted permanent residency, would add an estimated $1.5 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product over the next decade and would create over 400,000 jobs.
Advocates also say that the U.S. has a moral obligation to widen citizenship pathways. TPS holders are subject to the political whims of the president and party in office, which leaves them in limbo without permanent residence status. The Trump administration removed several countries from the TPS list, taking away protections for about 98 percent of TPS holders. President Joe Biden has reversed that decision — but although he’s promised to expand citizenship pathways for TPS holders, Dreamers and immigrant farmworkers, he hasn’t taken further action to codify that promise.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The interim prime minister of Haiti has declared a state of siege and imposed martial law following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, who died in an armed attack on his home. The first lady of Haiti was injured in the attack and airlifted to a hospital in Miami, where she is reportedly in stable but critical condition. Haitian authorities say police have killed four suspects and detained two others, but the individuals have not been identified. No evidence linking them to the assassination has been made public. It is unclear who is now in charge of Haiti, which was already facing a political, security and economic crisis prior to the assassination of the president. Haitians are “in mourning,” whether they supported Moïse or not, says Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance. “Today the streets of Haiti are empty because people are trying to make sense of what just happened.” She calls on the Biden administration to stop deporting Haitians and to allow more people who fled to the U.S. to apply for temporary protected status.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to begin today in Haiti. The interim prime minister there has declared a state of siege and imposed martial law following the assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse, who died in an armed attack on his home early Wednesday. The first lady of Haiti, Martine Moïse, was injured in the attack and was airlifted to a Miami hospital in Miami. She’s reportedly in stable but critical condition.
Haitian authorities say police have killed four suspects and detained two others, but the individuals haven’t been identified. Haiti’s ambassador to the United States said the assassination was carried out by, quote, “foreign mercenaries and professional killers.” Video shot from outside the president’s home shows the heavily armed attackers claimed to be from the U.S. DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration. Listen carefully.
ARMED ATTACKER: This is a operation. This is a operation. DEA. Everybody, go, go, go. [inaudible] Everybody, do not shoot. This is a DEA operation. This is a DEA operation.
AMY GOODMAN: “This is a DEA operation,” you hear them saying, the person speaking with an American accent, but this video hasn’t been verified. On Wednesday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price was asked if the DEA was involved in the assassination.
HÜMEYRA PAMUK: Can you speak to the DEA element of all of this? You’ve — the ambassador also talked about this footage where they’re identifying themselves as DEA agents, and he said that he doesn’t believe in it. I mean, can you say that that’s not the case, that you have an assessment that those are not DEA officials? Can you sort of, you know, set the record straight on that?
NED PRICE: Well, as you said, the Haitian ambassador himself has dismissed these allegations. These reports are absolutely false. The United States condemns this heinous act. These false reports are nothing more than that, just false reports.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s unclear who’s now in charge of Haiti. Under Haiti’s Constitution, the president of the Supreme Court would normally take power, but the judge recently died of COVID-19. Haiti’s Parliament was dissolved last year. Haiti now has two men claiming to be prime minister. Last week, President Moïse appointed Ariel Henry to become his seventh prime minister in four years, but Henry has not yet been sworn in. Meanwhile, Haiti’s acting Prime Minister Claude Joseph has assumed power following Moïse’s assassination. On Wednesday, Joseph addressed the nation.
ACTING PRIME MINISTER CLAUDE JOSEPH: [translated] The first elements of information we have at our disposal make us understand it happens to be a group of English- and Spanish-speaking persons. They were carrying huge-caliber weapons and killed the president. As the incumbent chief of government, I gathered this morning a special Supreme Council of the National Police. In strict accordance with Article 149 of the Constitution, I just presided an extraordinary council of ministers, where we decided to declare a state of siege on the whole territory.
AMY GOODMAN: Haiti was already facing a political, security and economic crisis prior to the assassination of the president. Earlier this year, opponents of Moïse accused him of orchestrating a coup to stay in power beyond February 7th, when his term officially ended.
We go now by Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, that works with Haitian immigrants in the United States.
As all of this unfolds, Guerline, if you can give your assessment of what took place? I mean, you’ve got this video with an American voice saying, “This is the DEA,” the Drug Enforcement Administration. This hasn’t been verified. Apparently people were speaking in Spanish — of course, not the language of Haiti. How is it that even this group of people could get to the president’s house without the acquiescence of the police or the military, which would suggest a kind of coup going on? What do you understand at this point, as you talk to people around Haiti?
GUERLINE JOZEF: Good morning, Amy, and thank you for having me.
As all of this are developing on the ground in Haiti, actually, after we received the call yesterday morning, in the middle of the night at 2:45, my first question was: What happened? Where are the guards? Where are the extreme security that the head of state is supposed to be having? As we’ve heard from the video, allegedly — we do not know exactly who those people are. I understand that people on the ground are still looking into those allegations. So we are hoping to get a light on those.
But what I can tell you is that today, as of yesterday, Haiti is in mourning. Whether you are, you know, for the Jovenel government or against his ideologies, today the people are in mourning. Today the people are in fear. Today the streets of Haiti are empty because people are trying to make sense of what just happened.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Guerline, could you talk about the significance of the assailants allegedly claiming to be from the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration, of the U.S.? To your knowledge, has the DEA operated in Haiti in the past? And if so, would the invoking the DEA overcome, as you said, the extreme security that the president’s residence has?
GUERLINE JOZEF: Well, I am not a person who deals with those specific issues. You know, our main issue is dealing with immigration and what’s happening on the ground when it affects people that are being forced to leave the country. So, as those investigations continue, I do hope that we get clarifications of what’s happening, and whomever are involved in this extremely, extremely disturbing and inhuman act in the country of Haiti will be brought to justice.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Guerline, could you talk a little bit — of course, we reported earlier, and there have been widespread reports of this, of the political violence and security situation in Haiti prior to this assassination, the government accused of using gangs to crush the opposition, many hundreds who have been detained, arrested or killed in the last several years. And you deal, of course, with migrants coming to the U.S. What do you know of that situation and how many people who come to the U.S. are fleeing that violence?
GUERLINE JOZEF: Yes. So, as you just mentioned, what we are witnessing is a result of a long and bloody, you know, acts that have been happening. As a matter of fact, last week alone, we have an estimated 15 young men and women who were massacred, including journalists, including a young woman who was leading the fight on behalf of the Haitian community on the ground. We are seeing that, you know, the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, as part of a long strike of bloody massacres on the people on the ground, and now to the highest level of office in Haiti. So, we have to understand that this didn’t just happen yesterday in the middle of the night. This has been a product of both internal violence and external violence that have been plunging Haiti into the darkness, what I said is into a new abyss. What we are seeing right now, we do not know what the next move will be, but please understand that this is part of a long history of bloody murders that have been happening in the country.
And now we are seeing — we at a level where Haiti is in mourning. Haiti is in pain. Our soul, our hearts are crying for justice. Our hearts are crying for peace. Our hearts are crying for protections, because we do understand, as we serve migrants in the United States, they do not want to leave home. But what do people have to do when home is in the mouth of a shark? As we look at what’s happening in the country, we are also seeing, you know, the effect of that in migration, forced migration, forced displacement. And the majority of the people leaving their home countries are because of abuse, because of political unrest, because of the type of issues we are seeing in Haiti right now. So, our heart goes to Jovenel Moïse’s family. The first lady, Martine, we are praying for her recovery. But we are also praying for those who have lost their lives without cause for the past week, the past year, the past month, as you have mentioned before.
AMY GOODMAN: And before we end, Guerline, you live here in the United States. You are a part of what many call Haiti’s 10th department: Haitians who live in the United States. When we spoke to you last, then-President Moïse, who’s now been assassinated, was supposed to leave office. The Biden administration has supported Moïse. And even this week, there was a deportation flight to Haiti. And you deal with immigrants all the time. Can you talk about what you’re calling on the Biden administration to do in this time of this unprecedented assassination?
GUERLINE JOZEF: Absolutely. Again, as you mentioned, you know, as of February 7th — depends on which way you interpret the Constitution — President Jovenel was supposed to leave, from the opposition understanding, you know, how they interpret the Constitution. And at the same time, the government of President Jovenel Moïse, the way they interpret the Constitution said that they were supposed to stay until 2022nd.
But what what we are asking President Biden to do is, one, to quickly release the Federal Register notice, so that Haitians who are currently in the United States are able to apply for TPS, that we have fought so long to be able to win that battle for over 150,000 Haitians who are already in the United States as of May 21st, 2021. And at the same time, we are asking for protection for asylum seekers who have been at the U.S.-Mexico border for between a year to five years, who have been waiting for a chance to apply for asylum. And we are asking President Biden to immediately rescind Title 42, which has been used as a vehicle not only to destroy lives, but to create that pipeline for expulsion and deportation to Haiti.
And, Amy, as you just mentioned, the eve of this assassination, there were a deportation to Haiti. So, it is absolutely unbelievable for us to see, as we just received TPS on the ground of the insecurity that’s on the ground, at the same time, for the United States to be deporting people to Haiti. So we are asking for a complete halt for all deportations to Haiti. We are asking for the release of all the Haitian asylum seekers who are currently caged in immigration prisons in the United States. We are asking the President Biden and his administration to provide protection, security for those asylum seekers and immigrants who have come to our shores asking for protection, as we see what’s happening on the ground today.
AMY GOODMAN: Guerline Jozef, we want to thank you for being with us, co-founder, executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance.
Coming up, as the U.S. military says its withdrawal from Afghanistan is 90% complete, the Taliban escalates its offensive by seizing more districts. We’ll speak to a longtime Afghan women’s rights defender and an Afghan journalist in Kabul. Stay with us.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that immigrants who entered the country illegally and have Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to stay in the U.S. cannot apply for permanent residency or a green card, as it’s typically called.
Over 400,000 immigrants in the U.S. currently have TPS, many of them from El Salvador. Earlier this year, Joe Biden’s administration opened up eligibility for the program to people from Haiti, Venezuela and Burma, meaning that hundreds of thousands of immigrants are now eligible.
TPS, a 30-year-old program, provides protection for immigrants from countries to which the U.S. has deemed it would be unsafe for them to return. President George Bush granted immigrants from El Salvador TPS in 2001 after earthquakes devastated the Central American country. Some residents who have been granted TPS have lived in the U.S. for decades and nearly 82,000 have been able to obtain green cards.
Jose Sanchez and Sonia Gonzales were the plaintiffs in the case, which questioned whether someone who entered the country illegally could be considered admitted because of their TPS status. Sanchez and Gonzales’s lawyer argued that admission is “inherent” in TPS. The couple came to the U.S. in the late 90s and have four children, one of whom was born in the States.
Some TPS holders have described the ability to get a green card as a lifeline that provides them crucial security in protecting their lives and the lives of their families.
“That threat of losing TPS further demonstrates why as many eligible TPS recipients as possible should be able to safely and quickly adjust their status to become permanent residents and eventually U.S. citizens,” wrote The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program in March in a document submitted to the Supreme Court. “To many Harvard TPS recipients, the United States is also their home, and they desire to make their investments in this country permanent.”
In that document, Harvard custodian Julio Perez shared his story. He was able to receive his GED after moving to Boston, where he has spent over half of his life. “I hope I can still achieve my dreams of going to college,” he said. “Even [if] it will be the last days of my life, I want to have that privilege.”
For undocumented immigrats who have seen their lives debated and subjected to the whims of changing political adminitrations for decades, Monday’s ruling is a major blow.
“Today’s decision is not just a setback for those immigrants currently in Temporary Protected Status who did not enter the United States lawfully,” Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst, said. “It also reinforces the barriers that Dreamers would face until and unless Congress provides a statutory path to some kind of permanent lawful status.”
The Donald Trump administration had taken away protections for many of the countries that were previously considered protected under TPS and which are represented by nearly 98 percent of the immigrants protected under the program. Biden had restored those protections and added countries to the list, but immigrant advocates say he could do more.
The Biden administration has kept immigrants with TPS status in limbo — opening up TPS eligibility while still supporting restrictions on the ability of TPS holders to apply for green cards. This despite the fact that Biden promised to create pathways to citizenship on his first day in office with the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021.
House Democrats recently passed a bill that would codify a pathway to citizenship for current TPS holders, but the bill hasn’t been taken up by the Senate.
Advocates called on Congress and the president to take action after Monday’s decision.
“Although this is a huge blow for one of the only available avenues for our families to adjust their status, this will not deter our struggle for obtaining green cards for all TPS holders,” said Claudia Lainez, a TPS holder and organizer for the National TPS Alliance in a statement. “This news only emphasizes the fact that [C]ongress must act now to guarantee permanent protections and for President Biden to expand the TPS status to everyone who deserves it.”
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.