Shannon McGuire, Law & Public Policy Scholar, JD Candidate May 2019
Eight years ago last week, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, killing anywhere from 220,000-300,000 people, displacing over a million from their homes, and leading to a cholera outbreak. In 2016, Hurricane Matthews devastated the country’s recovery efforts. The endless struggles Haitians have endured from these natural disasters make reports about the President’s vulgar and offensive comments about countries like Haiti even more painful. Yet many are not familiar with a change in the administration’s policies that gave effect to the President’s sentiments long before these insults escaped his lips.
On November 20, 2017, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced its decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Haiti and subsequently ended the same designation for El Salvador seven weeks later. The harmful effects of these policies on immigrant families and our economy are unknown to those unfamiliar with our immigration system or its history.
Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, is a humanitarian aid program that President Bush, Sr. signed into law in 1990 that originally gave protection from deportation to those fleeing war in Central American countries. TPS has given hundreds of thousands of individuals legal immigration status, authorization to work, and a Social Security Number after war or natural disaster ravaged their home countries. Since its creation, administrations have extended TPS designation to citizens from Nepal, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and Sudan, to name a few. As the name itself implies, TPS is only temporary and must be renewed by the administration every few years, which both Republican and Democratic administrations have done in years past. To be eligible for TPS, an individual from a designated country must apply to renew their status with USCIS periodically, paying $495 each time and maintaining a clean criminal record without felonies or more than one misdemeanor.
The Trump administration’s treatment of TPS has changed drastically. The number of individuals receiving lawful immigration status is evaporating with each new announcement by DHS to terminate TPS designation for different countries. House Republicans and Democrats have been pleading with the administration to continue this protection for recipients who have become part of their communities:
“Failing to renew TPS would needlessly tear apart families and communities across the country . . . TPS holders from Honduras and El Salvador have become valued and important members of our communities. They have started families, opened businesses, and contributed to this country in countless ways. They are part of the fabric of America.”
Yet, despite Florida lawmakers and even the Haitian government asking the administration to renew TPS for Haiti, DHS still terminated Haiti’s designation and told the 59,000 Haitian TPS recipients that they must find another immigration status, leave the U.S. by July 2019, or face deportation. The Haitian communities in Florida and New York were devastated by the news.
Haiti remains the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and its citizens rely heavily on the money that family members in the U.S. send back home to help after this decade’s crippling natural disasters. Not only does this policy affect those living in Haiti, but it also affects the lives of TPS recipients living in the U.S. who have been thrown into uncertainty. Haitian TPS recipients have given birth to 27,000 children that are U.S. citizens. After the designation expires, there will be households where citizen children can remain in the U.S., but their parents could be deported. In addition, 23 percent of Haitian TPS recipients hold mortgages. What will become of their home investments after they are forced to leave?
The effects on the Salvadorian community are just as grim. Over half of the 250,000 Salvadorian TPS recipients have lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years, during which time they bought homes, opened businesses, and started families. Thirty-four percent of these recipients hold mortgages. They have given birth to 192,700 U.S. citizen children. Hundreds of thousands of lives are being upended with no promise of a legislative solution from Congress.
Some may believe sending TPS recipients home will make more job opportunities for U.S. citizens, but this is ill-informed. If history is our guide, these policies will not help low-skilled nor high-skilled American workers and will likely leave behind negative economic impacts. This justification merely stems from the myth that immigrants steal American jobs. One Harvard economist states, “[W]hile immigrants represent about 15 percent of the general U.S. workforce, they account for around a quarter of entrepreneurs and a quarter of investors in the U.S.”
But there is a glimmer of hope for TPS recipients living in the Ninth and Sixth Circuits. Federal court decisions in these circuits created an opportunity for some to “adjust status” to Lawful Permanent Resident. In non-immigration terms, some may be able to apply for a green card. Those living in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, Alaska, Arizona, California, or Hawaii can apply to become a permanent resident through their spouse or adult child who is a U.S. citizen. Unfortunately, USCIS’s policy manual limits the rulings to these two circuits and has not allowed the rulings to be applied elsewhere. TPS recipients in the other 42 states have few alternatives.
This administration’s change in TPS policy is backed by the same anti-immigrant policies that reduced our acceptance of refugees from nearly 100,000 to only 45,000 and ended DACA, kicking the ball to Congress to use the futures of hundreds of thousands as a bargaining chip for a wall on the southern border. Simply put, the President and his administration are a walking contradiction. DHS says TPS recipients should find another immigrant status, while USCIS blocks them from doing so. DHS says these countries have recovered from natural disasters and war and that TPS is no longer necessary, then the President reportedly turns around and refers to the countries using an expletive during immigration reform negotiations. The President claims he has “great heart” for the 800,000 DACA recipients whose lives hang in the balance, yet his administration cares little about the thousands of citizen children born to Haitian and Salvadorian TPS recipients. The administration’s change in TPS designation is just one part of a series of immigration policies that are sending a clear message: immigrants do not belong here.
These policies are irresponsible and senseless.
Those are the thoughts that rip through my heart every time I read another anti-immigrant policy out of the White House. These policies reflect a total disregard for the lives that they needlessly traumatize with uncertainty—the children who are spending the holidays with only one parent because their hard-working, law-abiding father or mother was deported; the college students who have no idea if they will be able to receive education loans next semester because the future of DACA is unclear; the mothers who own homes, work two jobs, but do not know if their families can stay in the country their children call home; Haitian and Salvadorian communities all over the U.S. who are told “prepare to leave”, as if that is an easy option. Families are being torn apart and livelihoods upended.
Insecurity. Fear. Injustice. That is the legacy this administration will leave for immigrant families.