WASHINGTON DC, USA (CMC) - A United States legislator has written President-elect Barack Obama urging him to make granting Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Haitians a priority in his new administration.

Southern Florida Democratic Congressman Alcee Hastings, who represents Miramar, a city just outside Miami, said in his letter Wednesday that "the people of Haiti cannot afford to wait a single day longer for this much needed assistance.

"While I continue to hope that our current President [George W Bush] will finally acknowledge and address the dire plight of the Haitian people, it is important that the next administration be made aware of the importance of TPS," said Hastings, who has been in the vanguard of pushing for TPS for Haitians.

He said since Obama was elected on a platform of renewing America's global leadership, by extending TPS to Haiti, as has been done for other nations in similar situations, Obama would "once again prove that the strength of America is not simply the might of its military but also its capacity for compassion".

Hastings has taken the lead among Congressional Democrats in the fight to "end double-standard immigration practices, as they pertain to Haitian migrants".

The congressman is the author of HR 522, the Haitian Protection Act, which would designate Haitian nationals in the United States eligible for TPS.

Hastings has been calling for the extension of TPS to Haitian nationals for years, and has been continuously engaged in correspondence with the Bush Administration on the matter.

Last month, Hastings led a bipartisan group of 31 members of the US Congress urging Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to grant TPS to Haitian migrants currently residing in the US.

Hastings noted that, in October, the Department of Homeland Security extended TPS, for the eleventh year, for Honduras and Nicaragua and, for the eighth year, for El Salvador.

Meantime, prominent Democratic legislator Maxine Waters Wednesday called for what she described as a "better-funded, systemic approach to fighting hunger in Haiti".

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