Defending Temporary Protected Status (TPS)

On Monday, November 6, the Trump administration made the inhumane decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Nicaragua, effective January 5, 2019, as part of a broader attack against immigrants in the United States. And because of a lack of decision, the administration also forced an insufficient six-month extension  for Honduras, until July 5, 2018. Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke signaled the possibility that the TPS designation for Honduras might also be terminated at the end of that six-month automatic extension. People cannot live their lives in six-month increments. Nearly 60,000 Nicaraguan and Honduran TPS holders, as well as countless family and community members, are impacted by this announcement.

CWS Condemns TPS Termination for Nicaragua and Denounces Insufficient Six-Month Extension for Honduras

As DHS considers its decisions on TPS for Haiti (due November 23, 2017) or El Salvador (due January 8, 2018), it is critical the administration recognizes the violence, weak institutions, and a lack of human rights protections in Central America, as well as food, housing, and public health crises in Haiti persist. CWS urges the administration to reinstate TPS for Nicaragua and extend TPS for Honduras, El Salvador, and Haiti for at least another 18 months. Right now, we are facing a heartless campaign to tear families apart and devastate communities by arresting and deporting moms, dads, and young people who have lived in the United States for years.

TPS was created to provide protection to those in the United States when it is unsafe for their return home. TPS has given approx. 330,000 people from 10 countries the opportunity to rebuild their lives in the United States. TPS holders contribute billions of dollars to our economy, and many of them have lived here for years and are parents to U.S. citizen children. They are our neighbors. Tearing them apart from their families is wrong. Click here to learn more about the human cost of terminating TPS.

Here are some ways to take action:

1. Download & share the Interfaith Toolkit to Defend TPS! We invite communities across the nation to host an interfaith vigil, educate your faith community about TPS, amplify voices of TPS holders in the media, and meet and call your national, state, and local elected officials.
2. Join the #Faith4TPS to Respond to TPS Terminations: Click here for top 5 ways to take action!
3. Call Your Members of Congress: Tell Them to Extend Haiti’s TPS Designation for 18 Months!
4. Meet with Your Members of Congress: Tell Them to Support TPS Holders, Save TPS, and Stand With Our Immigrant Neighbors!
5. Learn: Read the September 2017 interfaith letter urging the administration to extend TPS for all TPS designations and protect all TPS populations in the U.S. Here are state-by-state fact sheets on TPS produced by the CAP Immigration Team. Click to read about how TPS holders are integral members of the U.S. economy and society.

We need a path forward – one that starts by keeping TPS protections intact and extending all TPS protections for at least 18 months, and for as long as the dangerous conditions in these countries persist. We also need Congress to act with a legislative solution that protects TPS holders from being uprooted from their communities and being separated from their families. To fail to extend TPS for these countries while they remain unstable would be an affront to our American values of hospitality, generosity, compassion.