TPS Holders Journey Across America to Protest Termination of Program & Advocate for Keeping Their Families Together
TPS Expiration Dates:
El Salvador, 9/9/2019
Haiti, 7/22/2019
Honduras, 1/5/2020
Nepal, 6/24/2019
Nicaragua, 1/5/2019
South Sudan, 5/2/2019
Over the weekend, the “TPS Journey for Justice Caravan” made its way from LA to Phoenix, Arizona. The nationwide tour is an opportunity for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders facing forced deportation to lift up their voices against the Trump administration’s decisions to terminate the program, separate their families, and send them to some of the most dangerous countries in the world.
Coverage of the caravan is excerpted below.
AZ Central’s Daniel González reported:
A caravan of immigrants is traveling across the country to protest the Trump administration’s phase-out of temporary protections for several hundred thousand immigrants from countries recovering from war and natural disaster. The caravan made a stop in Phoenix, where immigrants and supporters held a rally at the State Capitol.
[…]
Caravan members are calling on Congress to pass legislation that would allow immigrants with Temporary Protected Status to apply for legal status to remain permanently in the United States.
“Residencia ahora. Residency now,” the caravan of immigrants and their supporters chanted on the lawn outside the Capitol building in the sweltering heat.
[…]
Caravan members said immigrants with Temporary Protected Status have been unable to apply for legal status on their own and now face being deported to countries racked by violence and endemic poverty.
They say they deserve a chance to remain permanently in the United States because they have lived and worked legally here for decades, have children who were born here, and have contributed to the economy by working and paying taxes.
Alfonso Serrano for Color Lines wrote:
Some 50 beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a form of humanitarian relief for immigrants fleeing civil unrest and natural disasters, hope President Trump will reverse rulings that have given some 400,000 immigrants 18 months to leave the United States or obtain another form of legal residency status.
In a series of rulings in 2017 and early this year, the Trump administration revoked TPS for certain immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, Nicaragua, Nepal and Sudan.
The Trump administration argued that improved conditions in these countries means their protected status in the United States is no longer justified. But critics point out that many of these countries remain volatile, with political instability and violent crime running rampant. El Salvador and Honduras, for example, are counted among the most violent countries in the world.
