The Trump administration has extended Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from half a dozen countries through early 2021, as part of court action that blocked the administration from ending protections that have allowed some families to legally live and work in the U.S. for as long as two decades now.
Administrations from both parties renewed TPS—which has been extended to immigrants who can’t return to their home countries due to natural disaster, for example—without controversy in the past, but Donald Trump’s administration, led by White House aide Stephen Miller, made it a priority for attack, and it’s clear why: during a White House meeting last year, the white supremacist-in-chief infamously attacked TPS families as coming from “shithole countries.”
That remark later came back to bite Trump in the ass, when it was prominently cited in court action temporarily blocking the administration’s move. Now as litigation continues to play out in court, the administration has announced that protections for families from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Honduras, Nepal, and Sudan will be extended through January of 2021. Families and their advocates are celebrating this important victory they themselves led.
“This proves that when our community comes together to fight for justice we win,” said José Palma of the TPS Alliance. “The lawsuit against Trump’s racist termination continues to be a lifeline for TPS holders who are fighting for a permanent solution.” Among those depending on this program is Farah Larrieux, who is originally from Haiti. She’s lived in the U.S. since 2005 and runs her own television production company. She now considers Florida her home, but should her protections end, she “wouldn’t know how to begin rebuilding her life back in Haiti without TPS.”
The humane and common sense answer, of course, are permanent protections, and legislation addressing that, along with permanent protections for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients and Deferred Enforced Departure holders, has already passed the Democratically led House. But the Dream and Promise Act, which would put TPS and DACA recipients onto a path to citizenship, has been left to languish in Mitch McConnell’s legislative graveyard, making him complicit in Trump’s white supremacist agenda.
So in the face of this obstruction, it is the courts that are providing much needed—and lifesaving—relief to hundreds of thousands of these families. McConnell and Trump’s obstruction, though, shouldn’t keep us from fighting for what’s right, and what’s right is for these families to be able to stay here. These temporary extensions “do not give TPS holders the permanent protection they deserve,” said Jessica Bansal of the ACLU of Southern California. “Only Congress can do that. That’s why continued organizing and advocacy by TPS holders and allies is essential.”