Trump Administration may end temporary protected
status for Somalis, by Ann Corcoran 7/18/18.
Feds set to rule by Thursday on special status for 250 Somalis. Hundreds of Somalis who fled violence and famine in their home country could be forced to leave if the Trump administration ends a special immigration program that has allowed them to live and work here legally.
Frankly,
I don’t know why they still have TPS for Somalis when we have admitted over
100,000 Somalis as permanent refugees. Tens of thousands of permanent Somali refugees are in Minnesota
alone.
One of those stumping for the
continuation of TPS for Somalis is Jaylani Hussein, executive director of
CAIR MN
And,
you should know that in order for those here on TPS, the temporary refugees
were supposed to have been in the country (usually they were here illegally)
before TPS was designated for their country. It is not an on-going
opportunity for certain immigrants to get in and then say—gee I want to apply
for TPS.
Here
is the Minneapolis Star Tribune reporting on the hissy-fit emanating from the Somali Muslim
‘community.’ By the way, all previous administrations—Republican and
Democrat—are at fault for creating this ‘crisis’ as each subsequent one
extended the 18-month TPS designation over and over again.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will decide by Thursday
whether it will extend temporary legal protections to approximately 250 Somalis
who sought refuge in the United States, including some who have been living in
this country for nearly three decades.
A majority of those who would be affected live in Minnesota, which is home
to the nation’s largest concentration of Somali-Americans. The
special designation for Somalia was first approved by President George H.W.
Bush in 1991 in response to a brutal civil war, and
has since been extended 22 times under multiple presidents.
Known
as Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, the designation has shielded many
Somalis from deportation and enabled them to build families and businesses
here.
Ending
the program will force those migrant families into an agonizing decision: leave
the country or risk becoming illegal immigrants facing deportation.
Many
TPS holders are married to legal immigrants and have children who are U.S.
citizens, which means some Somali families would be forced to separate if the
special status is not extended.
Immigration
advocates warned that many Somalis facing loss of their protected status would
recede into the shadows, like the roughly 12 million immigrants in the United
States illegally.
Those
returning to Somalia from Minnesota would face a bleak future in a country
still stricken by armed conflict and a devastating drought, said immigration
advocates.
“Terminating
TPS would essentially be a death sentence” for Somalis forced to return, said
Mustafa Jumale, co-founder of the Black Immigrant Collective, an advocacy group
for black immigrants and their families, at a news conference Tuesday. “Given
the option of going back to face certain violence, many would choose to become
undocumented.”
It is widely expected that the Trump administration will rescind
Somalia’s special status, based on the president’s past comments about Somali
refugees and his increasingly hard line stance on immigration. Shortly before the 2016 election, Trump
singled out Somalis during a trip to Minnesota, saying large numbers of Somali
refugees were coming in to the state without proper vetting and were spreading
extremist views.
The
Department of Homeland Security has already revoked temporary protected status
for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from seven countries, including El
Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Liberia, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan. All of these
immigrant groups were given more than a year to leave. More here.
TPS
needs to be abolished entirely because it has been abused as we can see with
this case. Once their status has been extended innumerable times,
temporary migrants put down roots and then scream bloody murder that they can’t
be uprooted now!
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
No comments:
Post a Comment