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Posts Tagged ‘TPS’
TAKE ACTION: Time is now for TPS for Haiti
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010Immigrations & Customs Enforcement earlier today announced they were suspending deportations of Haitians in the United States:
STATEMENT BY DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY MATT CHANDLER:
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Assistant Secretary John Morton today halted all removals to Haiti for the time being in response to the devastation caused by yesterday’s earthquake. ICE continues to closely monitor the situation.
Jesuit Refugee Service/USA believes the U.S. should grant Temporary Protected Status to Haitians in the U.S., and we urge you to take action today to urge the White House and Congress to grant TPS to Haitian nationals in the United States, allowing the Haitian government the time it needs to invest its limited resources into rebuilding the country and offering emergency relief to its suffering citizens following a devastating earthquake which rocked the nation on the afternoon of January 12, 2010.
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Statement on Haiti from Jesuit Refugee Service
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010Jesuit Refugee Service – Latin America & Caribbean Region shares with the people of the area the great pain wrought by successive natural disasters that have struck our sister country of Haiti.
We raise our prayers and encourage the commitment to solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Haiti, guided by the example of the Good Samaritan of the Gospel.
Aid to Haiti will be coordinated through the JRS Dominican Republic office, which is under the direction of Fr. Mario Serrano, S.J.
Additionally, the centers of the Society of Jesus in the Dominican Rep. (Santo Domingo: Centro Bono and Alberto Hurtado; Santiago: Centro Bellarmine and Cephas Dajabón: Border Solidarity) have established a support network to aid earthquake victims in Haiti.
– Fr. Alfredo Infante, S.J., Regional Director of JRS – LAC.
Hastings amendment studies immigration policies aimed at Haiti
Monday, October 26th, 2009Congressman Alcee L. Hastings (D-Miramar) voted in favor of H.R. 3619, the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2009. Included in the Act was an amendment introduced by Hastings that directs the Secretary of the department in which the Coast Guard is operating to conduct a study examining the Coast Guard’s ability to respond to the effects of possible changes in U.S. immigration policies toward Haiti. (Click here for a PDF copy of the amendment.)
“Changes in immigration policies affecting Haiti are nothing new.” Hastings said. “In fact, it was just over ten years ago that Congress passed the Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act, which affected far more Haitian nationals than any of the currently proposed policies would affect.
“TPS, or some other comparable relief, for our Haitian neighbors is long overdue, and this administration has been stalling for far too long. This study will hopefully help us show that our government has rationally and realistically examined all possible results and that we are well equipped to contend with any possible effects.”
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Activists for Haiti press Obama on immigration plans
Monday, October 26th, 2009The Miami Herald reports on the growing unease among Haitian activists over their perception President Obama is not moving fast enough on either immigration reform or Temporary Protected Status for Haitian immigrants.
“I feel they are stringing us along, and we are in an awkward position,” said Randolph McGrorty, head of Catholic Charities Legal Services, who brought the subject to a head with a stinging e-mail sent to House, Senate and administration staffers last week. “Do we allow them to string us along because they are our allies or do we start calling them on the carpet for it?”
Presidential candidate Obama did not promise to grant undocumented Haitian immigrants temporary legal status in the United States — a designation known as Temporary Protected Status, or TPS — but activists said they believed the first African-American president would give the issue special consideration.
Instead, former President Bill Clinton — a United Nations special envoy to the country — and the United Nations have taken the lead in rebuilding a storm-battered Haiti after last year’s four back-to-back storms that killed hundreds and left nearly $1 billion in damages.
Jesuit Refugee Service/USA has long supported TPS for Haitians.
Congresswoman urges targeted, effective aid to Haiti
Friday, October 16th, 2009U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, delivered a speech yesterday outlining a continued commitment by the U.S. to support security, prosperity and democracy in Haiti. Watch the video here. Statement by Ros-Lehtinen:
It seems as if the stars are finally aligning for Haiti to reach its true potential. The UN’s appointment of President Bill Clinton as its Special Envoy to Haiti, and Dr. Paul Farmer as his Deputy, will no doubt help bring great advancements to this island nation. U.S. and multilateral efforts must be better coordinated. Also, assistance programs must be targeted to help Haiti achieve its own plans and goals. Better engagement with the Haitian Diaspora and effective sustainability plans must be the focus of future U.S. assistance.
It is also critical that Haitians living in the U.S. are immediately granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS). This is the missing piece in current U.S. policy which would successfully help Haitians in the short and long term.
Jesuit Refugee Service/USA has long supported TPS for Haitians. Learn more here.
Bill Clinton pushes support of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009Speaking Tuesday at the Americas Conference in Coral Gables, Fla., Bill Clinton again pushed the case to provide Temporary Protected Status for Haitians in the U.S., the Miami Herald reports.
Clinton also said that his wife, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, shares his opinion.
“Not a week goes by that I don’t push for this,” Bill Clinton said. “All I can say is that it’s not a State Department decision or it would have been done. Hillary strongly supports this.”
Clinton said the decision on whether to prevent the wholesale deportation of an estimated 30,000 Haitians ultimately was “a decision for the secretary of Homeland Security.”
Full story and video here.
Temporary Protected Status would stop the deportation proceedings against about 30,000 Haitians in the United States, and allow them to apply for work permits and send desperately needed remittances back to Haiti. Jesuit Refugee Service/USA supports the Haitians and believe that TPS should be granted immediately.
Temporary Protected Status still required to heal Haiti
Thursday, September 17th, 2009The Miami Herald and South Florida Sun Sentinel report that Haitians are still seeking Temporary Protected Status, which would stop the deportation proceedings against about 30,000 Haitians in the United States, and allow them to apply for work permits and send desperately needed remittances back to Haiti. Jesuit Refugee Service/USA supports the Haitians and believe that TPS should be granted immediately.
A year after a string of storms battered Haiti, South Florida Haitian leaders are stepping up efforts to press the Obama administration to activate a designation that would allow some 30,000 Haitians in the United States to seek employment.
“Our people need a work permit to continue contributing to this country and to provide for their families,” said the Rev. Jonas Georges, a pastor at All Nations Presbyterian Church in North Miami Beach. “It is a status that the president can say, with the stroke of a pen, ‘there it is.’ ”
Read the story here.
Bill Clinton should boost Haitian TPS effort
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009The Sun Sentinel says former President Bill Clinton should use his renewed clout to effect positive change for Haiti.
His efforts to free two U.S. journalists from North Korea have put former President Bill Clinton in the international spotlight. While he is on center stage, Clinton could do additional good by convincing the Obama administration to — finally — deliver temporary protective status to a relatively small group of Haitians in America.
The Caribbean nation is close to Clinton’s heart — that’s without question. The former president, in fact, is the United Nation’s special envoy to Haiti. He has traveled to Haiti twice this year, including just a month ago, to visit storm-battered areas as well as to promote investment, job creation and repair deforestation.
One can’t forget, either, that political unrest in Haiti was one of Clinton’s earliest foreign policy tests during his administration, back in 1994.
Video: Bill Clinton speaks at Haitian conference
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009Former President Bill Clinton addressed the Haitian Diaspora Unity Conference on Sunday and among other topics, urged those in attendance to continue applying respectful pressure on lawmakers to grant temporary protection status to Haitians in the U.S.
Chuck Fadely of the Miami Herald has the video:
Jesuit Refugee Service/USA and other organizations are advocating the U.S. to grant Temporary Protected Status to Haitians in the U.S., allowing them to stay and work here, and send remittances back to their homeland.
In December of 2008, the United States began forcibly deporting 30,000 Haitians back to their country, a country ravaged by consecutive natural disasters last September. The two hurricanes and two tropical storms that hit Haiti in devastating succession during harvest season last year killed nearly 1,000 people and left 800,000 of the country’s residents in need of emergency humanitarian assistance. The storms destroyed at least $180 million in crops, exacerbating an existing food shortage.
