Turning away those in need

This February, a panel of con­servative federal judges ruled that the Department of Home­land Security (DHS) can move forward with terminating Tem­porary Protected Status (TPS) for immigrants from Nicaragua, Honduras, and Nepal.

For the over 60,000 immi­grants impacted by this deci­sion, this is an incredible loss. As Jessica Bansal, an attorney with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, writes, the “decision allows mothers, fathers, students, and work­ers who have lived lawfully in this country for decades to be stripped of status without even acknowledging the devastation caused to them and their fami­lies or the contribution they have made to their communi­ties.”

Those impacts will be hard felt in California, which as of last year was home to nearly 80,000 TPS recipients — the fourth most of any state — who contributed $3.6 billion to the state’s economy.

Let’s be clear about what’s happening here: DHS is elimi­nating TPS for immigrants who are lawfully residing in the United States solely on the ba­sis of their race, ethnicity, and nationality. They are turning documented immigrants into undocumented immigrants, slandering them as “killers” and “leeches” simply to create the pretext for more ICE violence.

This is not speculation. Be­fore a judge blocked its termi­nation, TPS for Haitians was slated to end on February 3. News outlets began reporting in late January that the Trump administration was planning to launch an operation targeting Haitians in Springfield, Ohio and across the state.

The end of TPS would have set the stage for another brutal Minnesota-style operation.

While DHS denies that such an operation was planned, the end of TPS would still give fed­eral agents — who are operat­ing under mandatory arrest quotas — an excuse to question any given Black person in Ohio under suspicion that they may be an undocumented Haitian immigrant. After all, President Trump’s Supreme Court justices have ruled that immigration en­forcement agents can use race as the basis for stopping people.

While the end of TPS for im­migrants is particularly danger­ous for people of color, as the murders of Renee Good and Al­ex Pretti make clear, more ICE is bad for everyone.

What’s more, DHS is deport­ing them to nations — including Nicaragua, Honduras, and Ne­pal — that are currently facing political turmoil.

The Trump administration has also terminated TPS for people from Venezuela, Afghan­istan, Cameroon, and Cuba. Since then, the U.S. has invad­ed Venezuela and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro. The Trump administration is cur­rently imposing a total blockade on oil imports to Cuba, while threatening retaliatory tariffs on any country that sells oil to the Cuban government. Afghan­istan and Cameroon continue to struggle with their own political instability and social upheaval.

In short, none of these coun­tries are in a position to wel­come tens of thousands of peo­ple.

At the same time that the Trump administration is delib­erately manufacturing these humanitarian crises, it is weak­ening international aid net­works. This includes eliminat­ing the U.S. Agency for Inter­national Development (USAID) and withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, and other organizations.

In their absence, vulnerable countries will be left to fend for themselves — or worse, become the next victim of Trump’s glob­al real estate firm: the decep­tively named Board of Peace.

The Trump administration has attempted and thus far been successfully blocked from ending TPS for people from Ethiopia, Haiti, South Sudan, Burma, and Syria. TPS is cur­rently scheduled to end for Somali, Yemeni, Salvadoran, Sudanese, and Ukrainian na­tionals in the upcoming months. While judges may rule against some of these efforts, DHS will likely appeal until they find a court that will give them the de­cision they want.

TPS was specifically designed to aid those in need — its moral and political duty cannot be forfeited to the racist and xe­nophobic whims of this admin­istration. We must stand with our immigrant neighbors and push our elected officials to put guardrails on DHS’s clear abuse of power.

Jordan Liz is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at San José State University. He spe­cializes in issues of race, im­migration, and the politics of belonging.

This op-ed was distributed by Oth­erWords.org.