Campaign Action
Juan Carlos Vidal, a Salvadoran immigrant, has worked his way from kitchen assistant to opening up four Boston-area restaurants and employing more than 20 people. He is the epitome of the American dream, but his life could soon become a nightmare.
Vidal is one of the approximately 300,000 immigrants who have had permission to live and work in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Some of these immigrants, including TPS recipients from El Salvador and Honduras, have lived here for decades now, and they are parents to nearly a quarter of a million U.S. citizen kids.
But, Fabiola Santiago writes, “for no valid reason whatsoever and without regard to the inhospitable conditions of their countries of origin—or for their deep roots in U.S. communities—President Donald Trump revoked their temporary protected status, or TPS, and these families face imminent deportation deadlines.”
The administration is set to make a decision regarding protections for Somali immigrants by July 19, which could affect as many as 800 people. Salvadorans are by far the largest group of TPS recipients, at about 195,000. But whether it’s one family or 1,000,000 families, the administration is creating, Santiago says, yet another large scale family separation crisis.
“Do they take their American children with them to live in a violent, poor and unstable country?” she asks. “Or do they leave them behind in the United States, where they’re more likely to live in a democracy with better prospects for a safer and more prosperous life? It’s either that or take their children and bolt into the shadows before ICE comes for them, becoming part of the undocumented population.”
Sara Mohamed, a Somali TPS recipient, is afraid she may soon have to make that choice. “My husband has had TPS since 1992. What we have in this country is a life that we cannot have back in Somalia,” she said during an America’s Voice press call. “We want our children, who are American citizens, to go to college here and build their lives in this country. The U.S. is all our children know.”
TPS, which allows people to stay and work here when conditions in their home countries make it too dangerous to return, has been renewed over the years by presidents of both parties. But the Trump administration has, one after the other, announced the end of protections despite conditions in some of these countries remaining dire—and despite advice from senior U.S. diplomats. In fact, Trump loyalists, including white supremacist Stephen Miller, actively worked to kill TPS.
While a judge has ruled that one lawsuit against the administration from a group of TPS recipients can go forward, it has not yet resolved the crisis facing hundreds of thousands of immigrants who could get uprooted or be forced to go underground without congressional action, and as immigrants who have had to register with the government, they’re already among the most vetted.
“The crisis could be avoided,” Jill Marie Bussey, director of Advocacy at CLINIC, said during the press call, “if Congress would provide permanent solutions for TPS holders—a pathway for them to become permanent residents. A failure for Congress to act urgently makes them complacent in this inhumane scheme.” Adding to this urgency is that just last week, the administration announced it would extend, but not renew, protections for 1,300 Yemenis. After the 18 months, they too could be vulnerable to deportation.
“If Congress doesn’t act to grant them permanent status,” Santiago continued, “the world will witness more inhumanity playing out on U.S. soil. This one—happening to our neighbors—will be harder to hide. There’s no chain-link fence or cage big enough to hide the pain of hundreds of thousands of parents and children.”
“People who lost their homes in the earthquake are still living in tents,” said Erick Francois, a Haitian TPS holder who has lived in the U.S. since 2010. “It is worse now than when my family and I left. We are so worried because we don’t see how we could take our children back to a country like that. My hope is that Congress will fix this TPS problem … if they end TPS, we cannot stay here and I do not want the government to take my daughter away from me.”
