Campaign Action
Nearly 20 states and Washington, D.C. are backing a recent lawsuit fighting the Trump administration’s decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 50,000 Haitians who have had permission to live and work in the U.S. following a series of natural disasters that devastated the small nation. Officials announced the end of protections last year, giving them until July 2019 to find a way to adjust their immigration status. But without legislation to address this, Haitian TPS recipients and their 27,000 U.S. citizen children will either be deported, or be forced to go underground.
There’s plenty of evidence the administration ended these protections not because conditions had improved in Haiti, but because of racism, pure and simple. Documents reveal that officials were snooping the backgrounds of Haitian TPS recipients “for evidence of crimes” to justify deporting them. And as the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild notes, it was Haiti that was the target of Trump’s now-infamous “shit hole countries” rant.
In reality, Haitian TPS recipients have become deeply embedded in the fabric of the country, as parents of U.S. citizens, as homeowners and business owners, and as every day Americans who contribute to their communities. “Over the next ten years, loss of legal status for Haitian TPS holders is projected to cost more than $2.7 billion in GDP, more than $428 million in Social Security and Medicare contributions and nearly $60 million in employers’ turnover costs,” said a release from California attorney general Xavier Becerra, one of the states leading the amicus brief in support of the lawsuit.
But it’s more than just about dollars and cents, because terminating TPS without putting anything else in its place—like permanent legislation already offered by legislators—will tear communities apart.
TPS recipients are not just hoping for a positive outcome in the courts, but also winning a majority in Congress that can secure their futures here. “TPS holders are our neighbors and coworkers who have come to the United States seeking safety and stability,” Becerra continued. “Uprooting their lives does not improve our communities. We will continue to fight the Trump Administration’s wrongheaded actions tearing families apart.”