TPS Holders: The Forgotten Immigrants in our Midst

While the national media focus on disorder at the border, 300,000+ immigrants are slated to lose their legal status in 2019 with the elimination of their Temporary Protected Status. Immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, Honduras and elsewhere were granted “temporary” haven in the United States after war or natural disasters displaced them from their homes, but as the years went on many have put down roots and raised families here. Now the Department of Homeland Security has announced that most will lose that status and face deportation, separating them from their American spouses and US-born children.

A friend of the CLN at Georgetown’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor (KI) tells the story of TPS in a recent article. In Beyond the Caravan: Why We Must Protect Workers Covered by TPS, KI Program Manager Juan L. Belman Guerrero of tells the story of TPS and how recipients have contributed to the American economy and become part of our community. I know this all too well: many members of my local union, Laborers Local 11, are TPS holders threatened by the DHS action.

Belman Guerrero, by the way, identifies himself as a DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipient, born in Mexico. DACA protects undocumented immigrants who were brought here as children and grew up in the United States from deportation. In DACA and TPS, we together as a nation put into practice Christ’s call to welcome the stranger — and both are endangered by today’s ill political winds.

Want to take action to defend TPS Holders? Visit the National TPS Alliance to learn how you can help.