Campaign Action
New York Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez and a group of House Democrats have introduced legislation to protect the hundreds of thousands of Temporary Protected Status recipients from Haiti, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and other nations who face being deported if the Trump administration announces an end to their protections soon. Rep. Velázquez:
“Those in the TPS program are some of our most vulnerable neighbors who have fled natural disasters and political conflict at great personal risk. It would be inhumane to force these families and individuals who have built lives in the U.S. to abruptly leave.”
The “program is given to people facing ongoing violence, disasters, or conditions that make their return impossible,” according to Think Progress. But as advocates have noted, these nations are not prepared to receive these families, many of whom have lived here since President George H. W. Bush implemented TPS. Velázquez’s legislation, cosponsored by Congress members Joe Crowley of New York and Ted Lieu and Karen Bass of California, would put these families on a path to legal status. Says Lieu:
“The President would be forcing families, many who have lived in the U.S. for nearly 20 years and have made significant contributions to the U.S. economy, to leave the country or work here unlawfully. Many of their children—nearly 275,000 of them—have known no other home than the United States. Deporting them is neither sensible nor compassionate.”
“It would be incredibly hypocritical to turn our backs on people from Somalia and Sudan,” said Congresswoman Bass, “which are experiencing extreme food insecurity, or people from South Sudan, the youngest country on Earth that the U.S. has continued to support, by eliminating the TPS program.” The legislation has already earned vocal backing from Alianza Americas, the Center for Popular Democracy, Make the Road New York, SEIU, UnidosUS, and the Church World Service.
"Church World Service stands with the approximately 330,000 TPS holders in the United States and calls on our elected leaders for a path forward,” a release said. “We need Congress to enact a legislative solution that protects TPS holders from being uprooted from their communities and being separated from their families. Representative Velazquez’s American Promise Act does just that.”