D001 Haitian Temporary Protective Status
Resolved, the House of Deputies concurring,
That this 79th General Convention of The Episcopal Church recognizes that a six-month extension will not allow Haitian Temporary Protective Status (TPS) recipients living in the United States time to attain travel documents and make other necessary arrangements for their ultimate departure from the United States, and will also not provide the Haitian government with the time it needs to prepare for the future repatriation of all current TPS recipients; and be it further
Resolved, That this 79th General Convention of The Episcopal Church recognizes the arguments for extending this “temporary” status stressed that Haiti is in no condition to take back the estimated 50,000 or so people benefitting from this amnesty program and that its not like the expiration of the amnesty would mean all 50,000 would be rounded up and sent home the next day. Rather, they would all simply return to their prior status – mostly illegal aliens, plus some who were here on student or tourist visas when the earthquake hit. Those who were illegal and came to the attention of ICE would be deported, just like other Haitian illegal aliens; and be it further
Resolved, That this 79th General Convention of The Episcopal Church requests that the Administration hereby extends the TPS designation for Haitians for another 18 months.
Explanation
The Trump administration has decided the designation of "Temporary Protected Status” (TPS) for Haitians who were here illegally or on a visitor visa at the time of the 2010 earthquake would be extended yet again, but for only six months; and TPS is far from a permanent solution to the vast challenges facing Haitian immigrants and Haiti itself, it offers an important refuge for a group that has been victimized by natural disasters and harmful Western interventions; and The Caribbean nation had yet to fully recover from the 2010 earthquake when contamination at a UN base caused a cholera epidemic that has killed 10,000 people and, last October, Hurricane Matthew ripped through the country, killing hundreds more, destroying crops and homes, and displacing thousands; and After the earthquake, the Obama administration gave Haiti a Temporary Protected Status designation. First introduced in 1990, the TPS program provides humanitarian relief to nationals of countries coping with a severe conflict or natural disaster. By providing recipients with legal status and work authorization, TPS designations—typically granted in 6- to 18-month cycles that can be renewed indefinitely—have become a crucial means of aiding people who face unsafe conditions should they be sent back to their home country; and The TPS program has allowed thousands of Haitian immigrants to work and children to attend school, providing social and economic stability for families and communities; and In May of 2017, the Associated Press reported that the Administration was looking for evidence of crimes by Haitians in the United States and trying to tabulate how many TPS holders had used public benefits, potentially as fodder to justify ending TPS. The requests for criminal information—which coincided with the launch of a DHS office that will focus on crimes committed by immigrants—are particularly unorthodox; and The behavior of TPS recipients has never factored into the decision on a country's designation, and even if it did, criminal history is already a criterion in determining whether a TPS applicant qualifies for the program; and America has a moral obligation to support Haitian immigrants by extending Temporary Protected Status without delay and the Department of Homeland Security must also fundamentally alter its perception of black immigrants as criminals and instead implement long term programs that allow immigrant families to live and thrive in the U.S.; and This decision is a sounding alarm for what’s to come in the fight against the current administration’s intensifying criminalization of Black people and immigrants. The Department of Homeland of Security’s recent hunt for evidence of crimes committed by Haitian immigrants was not only unorthodox but also shows the determination of officials to carry out it’s racist and xenophobic immigration policy; and The unprecedented request for criminal data for Haitians protected by TPS suggests that we can only predict that there will be more policies that will expand the criminalization of black and brown communities; and The U.S. has a long history of providing protection and assistance to persons affected by natural disasters, and those experiencing humanitarian crisis and fleeing violence. The current administration has sent a signal around the world that those seeking humanitarian protection are not welcome in this country; and Extending TPS for Haitians for only six months only foreshadows negative outcomes for other groups in the United States who have fled from crisis. Some 13 countries are currently designated for TPS status, including Honduras, El Salvador, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and both Sudan and South Sudan up for renewal later this year. The decision has sent a message to other groups that there is reasonable fear in losing their TPS status as well; and Losing TPS could have ripple effects beyond the Haitians currently in the program. According to a recent report from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, if Honduras, El Salvador, and Haiti—the three countries with the largest number of TPS recipients—are all removed from the program, the US economy would lose $45.2 billion over the next decade. And it could cost some $3.1 billion to deport all TPS holders from those three countries, according to the report; and In December of 2016, at the request of Secretary of State John Kerry, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recommended that Haiti's TPS designation be extended. "While Haiti continues to make progress in a variety of fields, the pace and scope of recovery has been uneven, and the country remains vulnerable to external shocks and internal fragility," the agency noted. "Many of the conditions prompting the original January 2010 TPS designation persist;" and No TPS grant to a large group of people has ever been allowed to end.