Immediate Action on Temporary Protected Status Needed!

November 5, 2017

Dear Honorable Senators Schumer and Gillibrand,

There is concern that at various points in 2018 the Trump administration will not renew TPS (Temporary Protected Status) for the 10 countries that are currently in the program. On Friday, Nydia M. Velázquez introduced legislation in the House (H.R. 4253), the "American Promise Act," and it is imperative that the Senate do the same. Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, you sent a letter to DHS in July urging the extension of TPS designation for affected countries, and on Thursday you did so again on the behalf of Haiti, so I know you are ideal candidates to introduce legislation in the Senate. With action on DACA expected soon, it is important to counter Republican demands, especially the insane proposals of the President, with strong Democratic positions. In the horse-trading that is likely to ensue, the TPS program, like DACA, should not be compromised.

As you note in your July letter, "Since its creation in the Immigration Act of 1990 nearly thirty years ago,[2] TPS has served the humanitarian purpose that Congress intended, offering protection and shelter to foreign nationals unable to safely return to their home countries due to natural disaster, armed conflict, or other extraordinary conditions. TPS also has helped to facilitate recovery and stabilization efforts, as countries can focus on rebuilding—often with the support of critically-needed remittances—without having to deal with the strain of reintegrating large numbers of returning nationals.

In recent weeks, much has been said about the need to focus on the “temporary” nature of the TPS designation. It is true that although some TPS designations have been terminated in the past, other designations have lasted for a number of years. However, TPS has been granted sparingly over the past three decades and only in situations in which countries have been truly devastated by a natural disaster or are experiencing widespread armed conflict that poses a grave danger to the public. As a result, although the statute requires that the conditions justifying a grant of TPS be temporary, it nowhere presumes that the conditions will be short-lived and experience shows that it may take years for a country to get back on its feet—particularly when recovery efforts are hampered by subsequent calamities. Indeed, “temporary” in the context of natural disasters or armed conflict in countries with limited infrastructure and resources could reasonably mean many years.

For countries such as El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, and Nepal, consecutive natural disasters, including deadly earthquakes and hurricanes, as well as outbreaks of infectious diseases, have hindered these countries’ efforts to adequately improve their infrastructure and rebuild their national economies. High levels of violence and citizen insecurity often compound and frustrate rebuilding efforts. While these countries have shown signs of recovery, tens or hundreds of thousands of returnees would overburden their food, housing, healthcare, and social service systems, potentially setting back the fragile progress they have made and triggering deleterious consequences for the entire region. For countries such as Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, sustained armed conflict has contributed to global human displacement reaching levels greater than after World War II. Attempting to return individuals to these war zones will inevitably cause great harm or even death." (Petitioner’s Note: According to a broadcast on NPR today, the fates of Honduras’s and Nicaragua’s TPS designations are to be decided tomorrow, November 6, 2017. The Department of Homeland Security ended Sudan’s TPS designation in September. It is now set to expire on November 2, 2018. South Sudan was not ended, but only extended to May 2, 2019.)

The reasons to continue granting TPS designations are not just humanitarian but economic: both for the United States economy and the economies of the rebuilding home countries. In an April report, the Immigration Legal Resource Center estimated the economic consequences of terminating TPS for El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti. Among the key findings of the report:
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"There are approximately 186,403 Salvadorans, 70,281Hondurans, and 46,558 Haitians who currently hold a valid grant of TPS, for a total of approximately 300,000 individuals.
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Deporting all Salvadoran, Honduran, and Haitian TPS holders would cost taxpayers $3.1 billion dollars.
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Ending TPS for thes three countries would result in a $6.9 billion reduction to Social Security and Medicare contributions over a decade.
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Ending TPS for these three countries would lead to a $45.2 billion reduction in GDP over a decade.
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The wholesale lay-off of the entire employed TPS population from these three countries would result in $967 million of turnover costs, e.g. costs employers incur when an employee leaves a position.
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The loss in GDP and turnover costs would be felt most acutely in the locations where Salvadorans, Hondurans, and Haitians are primarily located, including major metropolitan areas in Florida, New York, California, Texas, Maryland, and Virginia."

As your July letter points out, "Haitians with TPS employed in nursing homes and as home health aides are filling a critical gap in chronically understaffed healthcare fields.[5]”

According to a report by the North American Congress on Latin America, "remittances sent home to families in their country of origin are often a lifeline in otherwise grim economic circumstances and . . . have become a vital national economic pillar. Between El Salvador ($4.0 billion), Honduras ($3.3 billion), and Haiti ($1.34 billion), for example, remittances in 2016 totaled over $8.6 billion."

It should be pointed out too, as Ted Lieu (D-California, a co-sponsor of Velázquez's American Promise Act) did in Friday's press release, that 275,000 American-born children will be affected should thei...