CHICAGO, March 1, 2019 – Today, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it will respect the federal court ruling in California from last October, and postpone the cancellation of Temporary Protected Status for nationals of El Salvador, Haití, Nicaragua and Sudan until January 2, 2020.  In light of this news, Oscar Chacon, Executive Director of Alianza Americas made the following statement:

“The DHS announcement gives the more than 300,000 TPS beneficiaries and their 275,000 US. Citizen children a little bit of breathing room as we continue to struggle for permanent protections.  This news is particularly important for Sudanese and Nicaraguan TPS holders who were already in immediate danger, as those programs had officially expired in November 2018,and January 2019 respectively.  

If these programs had been allowed to expire, it would have been a financial and humanitarian disaster, harming thousands of families and inflicting billions of dollars of damage on the US economy.  The announcement today is a stopgap measure. It motivates us to work even harder to insist that Congress protect all TPS and DED holders and work toward permanent residency for these long-term members of our communities.  

Alianza Americas will continue to make sure that members of Congress understand the many contributions that TPS holders are making to the economic, civic and cultural fabric of our communities.  We will continue to urge legislators to protect these and other immigrant families who have have come under attack from the racist and xenophobic policies of this administration.

We will continue to support our members in their efforts to use the federal courts to protect TPS holders, CARECEN Los Angeles, who spearheaded the lawsuit that led to the California court decision and DHS announcement today, and Centro Presente, whose legal challenges continues in federal court.”

Alianza Americas is a network of 50 immigrant-led organizations representing more than 100,000 families across the United States. It is the only US-based organization rooted in Latino and Caribbean immigrant communities that works transnationally to create an inclusive, equitable, and sustainable way of life. Learn more at alianzaamericas.org.