TPS Settlement Talks Fail, Opening Door to Deportations

After more than a year of negotiations, settlement talks between the Biden administration and plaintiffs in the temporary protected status lawsuit collapsed on Tuesday, leaving more than 250,000 people at risk of deportation.

The lawsuit follows a concerted move by the Trump administration to end TPS for citizens of several countries — El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti, Sudan and Nepal — as part of its efforts to roll back the expanded use of safeguards. TPS is a form of humanitarian assistance provided to countries affected by natural disasters or wars and allows beneficiaries to work legally while they remain in the US. Created in 1990, the program is now extended to people from 15 countries.

Plaintiffs secured temporary relief in 2018 when a federal district judge in San Francisco issued an injunction against block termination protection But in 2020, a three-judge panel of the San Francisco 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision. decision 2-1. This did not take effect because the immigrant lawyers requested a full court hearing, which has not yet been completed.

The Biden administration changed the status of temporary protection for Haiti and Sudan, but did not do so for four other countries. Those beneficiaries could lose their protection as early as the end of this year while the Biden administration goes to court to defend the previous administration’s decisions.

However, as presidential candidate Joe Biden called President Trump’s decision to repeal TPS “recipe for disaster”, promising to protect beneficiaries from returning to unsafe countries.

Amy McLean, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, said the settlement would provide protection and safety for TPS owners who have felt vulnerable during the past four years of litigation.

“There’s a reason why people lose faith in [Biden] administration,” she said. “These actions make us very concerned about whether they recognize the urgency of this issue and the fact that many lives are at stake because of their unwillingness to act.”

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on the upcoming lawsuit, but said “current TPS holders from El Salvador, Nepal, Nicaragua and Honduras will continue to be protected in the coming months.”

TPS owners and their US citizen children brought class action lawsuit in 2018 arguing that government officials were politically motivated in deciding to end the protection of these countries and were motivated by racism. Trump administration officials countered, saying the program was never intended to provide long-term respite.

Plaintiff Elsie Flores Ayala said she was disappointed that a settlement could not be negotiated. Flores Ayala, 43, her husband and their 24-year-old daughter have suffered from phantom sarcoma syndrome since 2001, a year after they came to the US from El Salvador.

El Salvador was first listed on the TPN list in March 2001 after two earthquakes hit the country, killing over 1,000 people and displacing over 1 million people. Since then, the US government has cited subsequent natural disasters and gang-related insecurity in reassignments. Nearly 200,000 Salvadorans have TPS, many of them in California.

Flores Ayala said she and her family in Washington depend on the benefits TPS brings: she works in childcare, her husband runs an apartment building, and her daughter is in college. She also worries about what might happen if they lose their deportation protection. Her two youngest children, aged 17 and 21, were born in the US and she fears being separated from them.

“The concern is serious because we don’t know what will happen to us,” she said.

In a witty 2018 ruling, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen blocked layoffs, saying beneficiaries risk being forced out of their homes, workplaces and communities.

“They face expulsion to countries with which their children and family members may have little or no connection and which may not be safe,” he wrote. “Those with U.S. citizen children will face the dilemma of either taking their children with them, or giving up their children’s life in the United States (for many, this is the only life they know), or being separated from their children.” .

The judge appointed by President Obama also cited Trump’s comments about Haitian and African immigrants from “shitty countries”, noting “circumstantial evidence that race is a motivating factor.”

During the discovery process, immigrant attorneys received internal Department of Homeland Security communications at the time decisions to terminate TPS were being made.

In one instance, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke wrote in a personal note in March 2018 that “TPS should end soon for these countries. … This conclusion is the result of America’s first look at the TPS solution.”

Career diplomats and other experts at the time warned that these decisions would have significant humanitarian and political repercussions, while a Homeland Security spokesman offered to study conditions in those countries for “positive gems” to justify his arguments that recipients no longer need legal services. protection.