Thread: FLIMEN TPS Is One More Scam

From: "FLIMEN" <alert@flimen.org> Add to Address Book
Date: 2006/01/28 Sat AM 11:46:39 EST
Subject: TPS Is One More Scam



Floridians for Immigration Enforcement

www.FLIMEN.org



TPS Is One More Scam

TPS (Temporary Protective Status) is one more scam upon the U.S. citizenry. TPS is a program that is supposed to provide a temporary safe haven in the U.S. for foreign nationals during armed conflict, environmental disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions. See http://uscis.gov/graphics/howdoi/tps.htm for a complete description.

The scam is that the program:

has almost never been temporary as promoted and
has been a safe haven for those who entered illegally.
For more information on TPS visit:


Below is an article from the Miami Herald that, as expected, failed to include any opposing view whatsoever.

Please consider calling President Bush at 202-456-1111 to express your disappointment in the TPS scam, amnesty as some call it, and urge the President not to extend the temporary program again.

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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/13695884.htm

Posted on Tue, Jan. 24, 2006
IMMIGRATION
Cuban-American leaders press Bush on 'safe haven'
Cuban-American lawmakers asked the Bush administration to provide Haitians and Central Americans fleeing dangerous regimes 'safe haven' in the United States.
BY THERESA BRADLEY
tbradley@MiamiHerald.com
South Florida's three Cuban-American members of Congress pressed the Bush administration Monday to allow foreign nationals from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and Haiti to remain in the United States for 'safe haven' while their countries rebuild.

Republican U.S. Reps. Lincoln D?az-Balart, Mario D?az-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen called on the administration to renew 'temporary protected status,' known as TPS, currently granted to Hondurans, Nicaraguans and Salvadorans. More than 300,000 are at risk of losing TPS and being deported.

In a separate letter, the lawmakers asked President Bush to make Haitian nationals eligible for TPS for the first time, too. They cited the two 'undemocratic actions' of ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide for creating conditions that make it 'extremely dangerous for Haitians to return to their country at this time.' Haiti is gearing up for elections in February.

TPS, a temporary work-residency program, created by Congress as part of the 1990 immigration reform law, today grants citizens of seven designated countries, plagued by armed conflict or natural disasters, the right to live and work in the United States for certain periods of time.

That status, reviewed every 18 months, has most often been extended, based on persisting instability countries.

The Bush administration has reportedly been considering dropping TPS and perhaps rolling it into a guest-worker initiative now being considered by Congress as part of a comprehensive overhaul of immigration law.

TPS beneficiaries send millions of dollars back home, pumping life into their countries' economies. Honduran immigrants sent $1.5 billion to relatives in 2004 -- the second-largest source of income for that country, according to the Consul General in Miami.





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January 28, 2006

Wishing for Disaster
Even Humanitarian Temporary Protections Suffer Under Anti-Immigration Fury

By Marcela Sanchez
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, August 24, 2007; 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON -- Who says that the millions of foreign nationals working in this country illegally don't have options to normalize their immigration status? For one, they can hope that comprehensive immigration reform will be resurrected sometime after the inauguration of a new president in 2009. Or perhaps they can hope for hurricanes, earthquakes or strife to change their fortunes -- for the better.

The reason is a normalization procedure in current immigration law known as Temporary Protected Status. Under TPS, the federal government can grant a temporary work permit to foreign nationals, even if they are here illegally, should their homelands be hit with conflict or natural disaster.

Since the program's inception in 1990, nationals from 16 countries have received Temporary Protected Status. Salvadorans represent the biggest group of beneficiaries -- about 230,000 -- and were granted the status after two earthquakes in 2001 killed more than 1,100 people and caused more than $3 billion in damages. Then come Hondurans (78,000) and Nicaraguans (4,000) who were granted TPS after Hurricane Mitch devastated their countries in 1998. Others covered by TPS include immigrants from Liberia, Somalia, Sudan and Burundi.

But TPS doesn't always apply across the board. Some of the deadliest natural disasters in recent years, including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people in 12 nations, the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan that killed 80,000 and tropical storms and hurricanes that killed or displaced thousands in Haiti and Guatemala, did not lead to protected status for immigrants from those countries.

In each case, the Bush administration rejected requests -- either from the countries affected or by members of Congress -- to apply the immigration status provision. In fact, there have been no new designations under TPS for more than six years.

As Guatemalan Ambassador Guillermo Castillo told me this week, the reason is simple -- "the political impetus in this country no longer exists" for TPS. Castillo said he was told last year by administration officials that Guatemala's request was being denied because it might have adversely affected immigration reform legislation being debated at the time. Today it is clear that just like comprehensive reform, even a humanitarian immigration measure for a relatively small number of people is falling victim to anti-illegal-immigration forces.

Critics of Temporary Protected Status say that despite its name, the measure is not temporary and that once beneficiaries receive it, they are given extensions indefinitely. This week, TPS for Salvadorans was extended for 18 more months; in May, it was extended for Hondurans and Nicaraguans.

In a letter last month to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, a Republican presidential candidate, called TPS "a tool to provide amnesty on a temporary installment plan."

Tancredo is concerned now that 3,500 Liberians will be granted another extension by the end of next month, when their TPS is set to expire. If Tancredo has his way, the Liberians, who initially received protected status in 1991 and whose country is only now recovering from a 14-year civil war, will see their status changed from legal to illegal overnight. Tancredo demanded that Chertoff "hold firm."

TPS critics do have a point -- 16 years, as in the case of the Liberians, is not exactly temporary. What's more, a system that keeps people guessing about their legal status for 16 years is cruel. Those under TPS are also in a legal limbo that does not give them a chance to become permanent residents, no matter how long and how much they've contributed to their host country.

Even so, this is all the opportunity thousands of immigrants have at becoming legal and they are deeply grateful for it. Now they may also be the last lucky few, simply because their home countries were hit by disaster at the right political time.

The U.S. immigration system is not only broken but absurd. So when the rational minds in this city, of which there should still be some, begin thinking again about the need to handle this mess, they should at least realize that there is one class of workers -- workers who have been legal for years, have been vetted several times, have paid taxes, have been contributing to their home and host countries -- who should be told, once and for all, that they are welcome to stay.