US lawmakers call on Trump administration to reinstate TPS
WASHINGTON, United States (CMC) – More than 100 United States lawmakers have called on President Donald Trump to reinstate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of immigrants, including Haitians, legally living in the North American country.
Democrat Senator Bob Menendez, the Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Congressman Eliot Engel, the Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Monday led a bipartisan group of 110 members of Congress in calling on the Trump Administration to reinstate the TPS.
Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, Elaine Duke, last November announced the decision to terminate the TPS designation for Haiti with a delayed effective date of 18 months to allow for an orderly transition before the designation terminates on July 22, 2019.
This decision follows a decision by Washington that Haiti had made considerable progress, and that the country’s designation will likely not be extended past six months.
The decision to terminate TPS for Haiti was made after a review of the conditions upon which the country’s original designation were based and whether those extraordinary but temporary conditions prevented Haiti from adequately handling the return of their nationals, as required by statute.
Based on all available information, including recommendations received as part of an inter-agency consultation process, Duke determined that those extraordinary but temporary conditions caused by the 2010 earthquake no longer exist.
The bipartisan lawmakers group released their letter sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after the State Department released a series of internal documents showing the Trump administration’s overtly political decisions to terminate TPS for El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti.
“We believe that the warnings that then-Secretary (Rex) Tillerson ignored – that mass deportations could destabilize the region, trigger a new surge of unauthorized immigration, endanger our U.S. foreign policy goals, risk the safety of TPS beneficiaries and their US citizen children and force the separation of families – require reconsideration,” they wrote in their letter to Pompeo.
“Given the implications…. we strongly urge you to reverse your predecessor’s recommendation and conduct a thorough review of the decision-making process that led to it,” they added.
