Yemeni TPS Holder Grapples with Upcoming Extension Deadline
Countdown to TPS Decision Deadline for Yemen: 3 Days
DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has until July 5th, this Thursday, to decide whether to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or deport the approximately 1,200 Yemenis legally working and raising families in the United States.
In a piece for HuffPost, reporter Akbar Shahid Ahmed highlights how TPS has changed the lives of Yemeni immigrants and their families seeking refuge from escalating war and humanitarian crises back home. The article is available in full here.
You can find an excerpt of Ahmed’s article below:
For [Waddah] Aldailami, TPS meant a chance to work legally, obtain a driver’s license and better meet his children’s needs ― driving them to school if they missed the bus, for instance, or taking his oldest, who is severely autistic, to medical specialists. “TPS helped me let them live like American children,” he said.
Meanwhile, in Yemen, conditions only got worse. The U.S.-backed coalition bombed hundreds of civilian targets. Their rivals, the Houthi rebels, cracked down on Yemenis questioning their rule. Food and medicine became even more expensive as it got harder to bring them in. And amid the chaos, militant groups like al Qaeda grew stronger.
[…]
Nielsen’s aides are listening to experts’ concerns while weighing whether the latest advance by the U.S.-backed coalition suggests an imminent improvement in Yemen, according to Jill Marie Bussey of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, who recently attended a meeting at the Department of Homeland Security.
But claims of imminent improvement would be a highly optimistic take on what’s likely to be a major battle. “Even if it were [true], we still have the world’s worst humanitarian crisis going on and it would take a bare minimum of 18 months to begin to assess truly the damage that has been done,” Bussey said. “To most of us in the advocacy community and those who know Yemen well, this is a no-brainer.”
