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September 22, 2020 — Congress failed and as a result nearly 400,000 Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders and their families are vulnerable and uncertain about their future. In January 2018, the Trump administration announced it was ending TPS for people from El Salvador. Sudan, Nepal, Nicaragua and Haiti were terminated in 2017. Honduras was given a few more months, and then terminated as well. TPS is a status granted to people as a result of ongoing armed conflict, environmental catastrophes, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions. Many of the persons granted TPS have lived in the U.S. for decades, protected from deportation, allowed to work and even travel abroad. Regretfully, US Immigration Law does not contain a program to allow individuals who have resided as unauthorized immigrants in the US to apply for permanent residency visas solely based on their length of presence in the country.
The U.S. is home to hundreds of thousands of TPS holders, their U.S. citizen children and families. More than 130,000 TPS holders are essential workers in the United States during this COVID crisis. 270,000 U.S. citizen children are impacted by the Trump Administration’s decision to end TPS.
A few days ago, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a much awaited decision in the case of Ramos v. Nielsen, that challenged the Trump Administration’s termination of TPS for a number of countries including El Salvador, the country with the largest number of recipients. A three-member panel of the Court, made up of two Republican-appointed judges who issued the opinion found that they did not have the authority to review whether the President’s decision to end TPS was constitutional and also, even as they listed pages of racist and xenophobic statements made by the President and those close to him, they said that they lacked specific evidence that the decision to end TPS was based on racial discrimination or anti-immigrant bias. This decision opens the door for the President to move forward with ending status for hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. The Court found they had no authority based on the limitations placed on them by the 1996 immigration laws that radically reformed immigration law in the United States and created many of the problems we have today. Those laws were passed by a Republican majority Congress and signed into law by then President Bill Clinton, a Democrat.
For decades, Congress has failed to protect vulnerable immigrant communities allowing for the deportation of millions of people, the separation of families, the eradication of asylum protections, increasing incarceration and criminalization of immigrant communities and the continued limitations placed on obtaining legal status. Both parties have benefitted from the current state of immigration in this country, one by claiming to stand with immigrant communities, while the other demonizes immigrants. Congress has turned their backs on immigrants and it is up to us to say NO MORE.
TPS is not over. At a minimum, TPS will be in place until March 2021 for citizens of Nicaragua, Nepal, and Sudan and until November 2021 for people from El Salvador. In the meantime, communities must not panic, rather they must organize, connect with trusted local organizations, consult with a trusted immigration lawyer to explore the possibility of more permanent status, and help ensure that everyone who can vote, votes. There are also other pending federal cases that could impact these dates and the outcome of the termination of TPS.
Each of these steps to dismantle TPS, end protection for immigrants, and limit the court’s power over immigration law is a direct result of U.S. elections. Elections matter when it comes to selecting judges to the Supreme Court and other federal Courts, when it comes to immigration agencies setting its priorities, in the decision of who to protect with TPS, DACA, decisions regarding the environment and education and countless other administrative actions made by those selected during each election cycle. Elections matter and impact the everyday lives of each of us and it is critical that everyone who can vote exercise that right and responsibility to make their voices heard.
