Advocates and TPS holders call on Congress to pass permanent protections
Jesse Canales at Spectrum News reports on Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders and business leaders who gathered in Orlando yesterday to call on Florida Senators to pass the SECURE act, legislation that would provide permanent protections and a pathway to citizenship to more than 400,000 TPS holders and their families across the country. Both U.S. Senators from Florida, Republicans Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, issued statements denouncing citizenship for TPS holders.
As part of the American Business Immigration Coalition week of action, TPS holders are calling on Congress to take action this year, using the budget reconciliation process if necessary to create a path to citizenship for long term, deeply rooted immigrants like TPS holders. Last week’s decision from a Texas federal judge ruling DACA unlawful was just one in a series of reminders that temporary programs like TPS and DACA are under threat in the courts and it’s up to Congress to act on legislation that will provide permanent protection and a path to eventual citizenship.
Included in the article, both U.S. Senators from Florida, Republicans Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, issued statements opposing citizenship for TPS holders. Sen. Rubio said a citizenship bill “would be perhaps one of the worst things they could do right now,” while Sen. Scott denounced what he called “radical open borders and amnesty policies — which hurt hardworking Americans…”
The article is excerpted below and available in full here.
On Wednesday, several Temporary Protected Status holders and applicants gathered in Orlando alongside Florida business leaders to call for a permanent solution.
The event was created after a federal judge ruled DACA was illegal last Friday. It’s one of many events the American Business Immigration Coalition plans to hold during its Week of Action.
After Venezuela received TPS designation, Gabriel Ortiz, a speaker at the event, applied for it.
Ortiz arrived in the U.S. about a year ago for what was supposed to be a short stay.
“I just came to visit one day and then I have to stay, the TPS came here, then the pandemic and then the whole political situation in Venezuela,” Ortiz said.
He said his job as a human rights attorney in Venezuela put his life in danger.
[…] After the DACA decision, he didn’t’ want to wait and see if his country’s TPS designation would be removed. He knows the first word in TPS, temporary, means just that.
It was why he and the rest of the TPS holders at the event called on Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott to support the Secure Act, which stands for Safe Environment from Countries Under Repression and in Emergency. It would create a pathway to citizenship for TPS Holders.
“We are very concerned on what can happen in the designation of TPS,” Ortiz said. “It’s important for me to have the opportunity to stay here, to work here, to give a better future to my people in Venezuela, and I don’t see a better way to it than here in the United States.”
According to Douglas Rivlin, Director of Communication for America’s Voice: “The American people strongly support citizenship for immigrants, and TPS holders and their families have lived in uncertainty for too long. The time is now for Congress to step up and pass legislation to provide permanent protection and a path to citizenship.”