What Allies Can Do to #SaveTPS
By Jessica Chilin-Hernández
Next week, 45’s Administration will decide my future. On Monday January 8, 2018, the Administration is scheduled to announce whether to end to Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for El Salvador, as they did with Haiti, Nicaragua and Honduras in 2017. With the impending deadline coming up, I am not feeling too hopeful as I contemplate all the aspects of my life that would fall apart if TPS is terminated: How am I going to live without TPS? Without my job, how can I pay for health insurance? How will I pay rent, utilities, and my car? As of today, I only have 63 days left on my TPS work permit.
While I ponder on these fears among others, allies keep turning to me with the following question: What can I do to help and how can I support you? And to be quite honest, I sigh in silent desperation. I don’t want to dismiss allies, but I am disappointed in liberals and progressives. Where were they when the same situation was happening to TPS beneficiaries from Haiti, Honduras, and Nicaragua? How about Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone? As of May 21 2017, TPS was effectively terminated for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, yet not enough people are talking about it. This saddens me tremendously.
While changing one’s social media profile picture or sharing/retweeting an insightful idea is great, it is not enough. If an ally’s action extends no further than social media, then it amounts to no more than a superficial performance of allyship to the immigrants’ rights movement. More is needed to mobilize the advocacy, lobbying, and direct actions that have to happen for Congress to legislate comprehensive immigration reform that opens the American Dream to all immigrants.
With that in mind, I offer the following answers to allies who ask what they can do to help to #SaveTPS:
1. Know the facts
TPS is not a grant of permanent legal status in the United States, yet provides short-term protection from deportation. My TPS work permit card literally says on the back This card is not evidence of U.S. citizenship or permanent residency. TPS beneficiaries are Black, LatinX, Middle Eastern and Asian. We come from Haiti, Syria, Nepal, Honduras, Yemen, Sierra Leone, El Salvador, Somalia, Guinea, South Sudan, Nicaragua, Liberia, and Sudan. These countries were granted TPS designation on account of either civil strife (usually the reason for Middle Eastern countries) and natural disasters (usually the reason for countries in Latin America and the Caribbean).
2. Understand what is at stake
I need you to engrave in your mind that this country not only has the capacity to deport us but that this administration is willing to do it. While you’re at it, I need for you to read up on immigration history and policies — specifically that “illegality” and “undocumentedness” are concepts that were created to exclude and exploit. Being sent to live in a country –even if it’s your country of birth– without a job lined up, housing, a community, and knowledge of that country’s social institutions is unimaginably nerve-racking to me at this moment. Being deported to El Salvador means I would come back with less than what I had when I originally left.
3. Read up on potential dignified legislative fixes
After decades of living in the US, there is no doubt that TPS beneficiaries belong here. The only dignified solution to our predicament is a legislation that leads to Permanent Residency (PR). As of now, the legislations that would provide PR status to all Black, LatinX, and Asian TPS beneficiaries are the American Promise Act of 2017 (H.R. 4253) and the SECURE Act (S. 2144). Beware of the unjust and non-inclusive legislations: ESPERER Act of 2017 only covers Haiti, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, and ASPIRE TPS Act 2017 only extends legal status lasting 6 years and PR only if the person shows “extreme hardship”. If you’ve ever dealt with the U.S. Immigration system, extreme hardship is not easy to prove even though all TPS beneficiaries, by definition, would encounter extreme hardship if they were to return to countries that have been devastated by natural disasters or civil wars.
4. Reach out to your Members of Congress
Call congressional offices directly or through the switchboard at 202–225–3121 for the U.S. House of Representatives, and 202–224–3121 for the U.S. Senate. Be ready to share the basics: your name, where you live, the fact that you are a constituent, and why you’re calling. Write it all down before you call, if it helps. Whether your call goes to voicemail or is answered by an aide, make sure to speak clearly, slowly but determined. If you want to cite research or facts, refer to the data compiled by the Migration Policy Institute and Center for American Progress on the TPS program.
5. Connect folxs to legal counsel
Everyone’s immigration case is different, but immigration law is both esoteric and confusing. Our community is often scammed by fraudulent notarios, but having access to competent and affordable immigration counsel can make the difference. A TPS beneficiary could potentially qualify for an F-1 Visa if they are enrolled in college; Permanent Residency if they have a child sibling with U.S. citizenship; a T-Visa if they were trafficked into the U.S.; a U-Visa if they’ve been victims of criminal activity; etc. TPS beneficiaries may have options to adjust their status, yet only a qualified immigration attorney will be able to navigate those questions with them. If you have connections to an immigration attorney, offer them up.
6. Fund the movement
Last but not least, consider funding the immigrants’ rights movement at the grassroots level. As of now, many organizations are coordinating important efforts to lobby for the preservation of TPS. Their work has led to invaluable direct actions, dissemination of key information, and mental health resources for migrants that are crucial to the sustaining of the movement. So, if you can afford it, please consider supporting the UndocuBlack Network, the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) chapters in DC, LA, NY, the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC) and the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI).
As a person of faith, I believe that prayers are powerful. Yet prayer alone will not be enough to move 45’s Administration to be more humane or logical. We need to counter anti-immigrant policies with force, clarity, and determination. If naturalized and documented allies do not step up outside of their comfort zones to protect undocumented in this moment of peril, we’ll be forsaking our responsibility to ensure that the arc of the moral universe continues to bend toward justice. As an ally to immigrants, I need for you to not just settle for the Dream Act. Saving TPS is how we can genuinely start to advocate for racially just, comprehensive immigration reform that makes it easier for all asylees, refugees, and persecuted people to pursue new beginnings in the United States.
Jessica is an Undocumented American with TPS status. The views expressed on this piece are entirely her own.
