Republicans block attempt to pass TPS for Venezuelans weeks before Election Day
Marleine Bastien, a Haitian activist, said advocates like her will continue to fight on behalf of the estimated 400,000 TPS holders
SEPTEMBER 16, 2020
- WASHINGTON
- Republicans blocked a proposal Wednesday by Democrats in the U.S. Senate to fast-track a bill that would grant Venezuelans in the United States Temporary Protected Status, the latest attempt to appeal to Venezuelans in Florida seven weeks before Election Day.
- Two Democratic senators, Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Dick Durbin of Illinois, attemptedto pass a bill that would have granted TPS to Venezuelans — allowing them to live and work legally in the U.S. for a limited time without threat of deportation — through a process in the Senate called unanimous consent. The move, which is essentially a voice vote, bypasses usual Senate procedure and provides a speedy way to pass legislation, but it fails if one senator opposes it.
- South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune blocked the bill’s passage on behalf of Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee.
“This is a serious mistake and deadly mistake for these Venezuelans,” Durbin said in response to Thune’s objection.
After the bill was blocked, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden criticized Republicans. Biden said Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis under Nicolás Maduro’s leadership caused millions to leave the country and justifies the need for TPS.
“Republicans continue to prove all their tough talk on Maduro is nothing but empty words,” Biden said in a statement. “Time and again, when it comes to taking real action, President Trump and his Republican allies have failed to support the Venezuelan people. As president, I will immediately grant TPS to Venezuelans already in the United States.”
The TPS bill was authored by Florida members of Congress from both sides of the aisle: Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, from Miami, and Democratic Rep. Darren Soto, from Kissimmee.
Menendez said the effort, though largely symbolic, helps to spotlight an issue that President Donald Trump could fix. “The fact of the matter is we have 200,000 Venezuelans who are currently in the U.S. and essentially at risk of deportation,” he said. “The president has all the authority he needs in the world to provide TPS and he hasn’t, so we’re trying to act.”
Menendez said a federal court decision on Monday that overturned a lower court’s temporary injunction to prevent Trump from terminating TPS for countries like Haiti blunts arguments from Republicans like Florida Sen. Rick Scott that TPS isn’t temporary and can extend for decades. Honduran and Nicaraguan nationals were granted TPS in 1999 after the two countries were devastated by Hurricane Mitch. Haiti was granted TPS in 2011 after the 2010 earthquake.
Scott attempted to pass a conservative overhaul of the Temporary Protected Status system in September 2019 in exchange for extending TPS to Venezuelans, but Democrats blocked the effort.
“We presented an alternative that Democrats have blocked,” Scott spokesperson Chris Hartline said. “The politics internally in the Senate is still complicated. It doesn’t seem like there’s going to be much of a resolution.”
In a statement, Durbin said Democrats were forced to bring up the bill again on the floor because Republicans have no interest in using normal procedure to debate and vote on TPS.
“Despite the chest thumping to audiences in Florida about taking on the Venezuelan dictatorship, President Trump has, in fact, turned his back on Venezuelans in the U.S. in need of protection,” said Durbin, who also spoke with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó ahead of Wednesday’s action. “Since the White House wouldn’t act, more than one year ago the House passed a bipartisan bill granting TPS to Venezuelans. But the Majority Leader [Mitch McConnellhttps://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/venezuelan-immigrants-united-states-2018">Migration Policy Institute, though many have become naturalized citizens. TPS is for non-citizens.
“There is no question about it, TPS is on the ballot on Nov. 3,” Miami Democratic Rep. Donna Shalala said during a virtual press conference with the Family Action Network Movement on Tuesday. “We’ve got to tell our friends and neighbors that decency and opportunity is on the ballot on Nov. 3. This decision is outrageous.”
The Biden campaign on Tuesday called the court decision “senseless.”
“This is senseless and a stark reminder that Donald Trump is willfully tearing families apart and sending TPS holders back to devastating conditions for the sole purpose of pursuing his racist, anti-immigrant agenda,” Biden’s national Latino media director Jennifer Molina said in a statement. “TPS recipients and their families, whether from Nicaragua, Haiti, or any country affected by this inhumane decision, should be assured that Joe Biden will continue to fight for a fair, humane, and orderly immigration system that is defined by compassion, not cruelty.”
Marleine Bastien, a Haitian activist whose Family Action Network Movement is a plaintiff in a TPS lawsuit filed in New York, echoed Shalala’s sentiments. She said advocates like her will continue to fight on behalf of the estimated 400,000 TPS holders affected by Monday’s court decision and will continue to urge Florida Sens. Marco Rubio and Scott “to put their action where their mouths are and support TPS recipients.”
Rubio and Scott support TPS for Venezuelans, but other Republicans in the Senate and the Trump administration have refused to take action on the issue.
“We ask Sen. Rubio and Sen. Scott to raise their voices on behalf of the people who have TPS, raise their voices on behalf of the families of those with TPS so that we can find a permanent solution for these people and their children,” Bastien said in Creole during the call.
Under the decision, the earliest any of the TPS holders from Nicaragua, Sudan or Haiti would be affected would be March. Nationals of El Salvador wouldn’t find themselves in deportation proceedings until November.
The case is one of several TPS-related lawsuits against the Trump administration in the U.S. federal courts. Haitians currently are protected by another temporary injunction, this one issued last year by U.S. District Judge William F. Kuntz of the Eastern District of New York. In a 145-page federal ruling that the administration has since appealed, Kuntz issued a nationwide temporary injunction preventing DHS from terminating TPS for Haitians.
Kuntz said 50,000 to 60,000 Haitians and their U.S.-born children would suffer “irreparable harm” if the legal protection ended and they were forced to return to a country that is not safe.
“This administration could grant TPS on its own, but it refuses,” Durbin said. “Senate Republicans could pass the bipartisan House bill to grant Venezuelans TPS, but they also refuse. So let everyone be clear where the real failure to help Venezuelans in the U.S. rests.”
US IMMIGRATION
TPS Holders, Advocates, Communities Condemn Court Decision on Injunction in TPS Case Ramos v. Nielsen
WHO: Family Action Network Movement, Florida Immigrant Coalition, American Friends Service Committee
MIAMI – In the wake of the decision on the current injunction in the case Ramos v. Nielsen, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, their families and communities will be holding a virtual press conference to condemn the negative decision. In Miami alone, it is estimated that 23,000 TPS recipients will be affected by this decision, many of which have been in the United States for more than 20 years.
Thousands across the nation are rallying against the decision on the injunction preventing hundreds of thousands of deportations and to draw attention to the fact TPS holders and their families deserve and urgently need a path to permanent residency and citizenship here in the U.S.
Marleine Bastien, Executive Director of Family Action Network Movement (FANM), stated, “ This is terrible news! The court’s decision today leaves nearly 300,000 TPS holders vulnerable to one of the biggest mass deportations in our country’s history. These hardworking taxpayers, many of whom have resided in the United States for over twenty years, could be forced to return during a global pandemic to vulnerable nations still struggling from political turmoil, violence, and unrest. In addition, their over 275,000 U.S. citizen children would have to make the heart wrenching decision whether to leave their home or be separated from their families. How can we be a nation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness if we continue to allow for family separation?! How can we profess to be a nation of immigrants if we continually disdain and disregard those who are black and brown? We demand U.S Senators to rebuke this disgusting decision and to immediately pass “The Dream and Promise Act” passed by the House of Representatives in 2019 protecting TPS recipients. Since 1990, TPS holders have only been protected temporarily. They are completely unprotected now. Congress must protect them! We must all protect them! It is our moral duty as Americans and as people.”
Maria Rodriguez, Executive Director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition stated, “In a brave attempt to keep their families together, the children of TPS holders spearheaded a case (Ramos v. Nielsen). Over the past twenty years, TPS holders have laid down roots in the United States. They’ve created families, businesses, and in the middle of a pandemic, nearly 130,000 of essential TPS working in the frontlines across the country have kept us safe. This negative decision is cruel, exposing families and making them vulnerable to family separations. Now, more than ever, we need to stand with our immigrant communities. We will continue working to transform existing legislation and public policies in order to ensure that they are inclusive, equitable, and just to the hundreds of thousands of TPS holders and DACA recipients, and the millions of immigrants who reside in the U.S. We need to act now, protect TPS holders, and ask for a permanent solution.”
BACKGROUND:
There are over 400,000 people living in the United States with TPS and over 200,000 U.S. citizen children of TPS holders. In the wake of disasters in foreign countries, the U.S. government granted humanitarian relief (in the form of TPS) to people from affected countries already living in the United States. For the countries at issue in the lawsuit, the U.S. government extended TPS repeatedly—for at least 8 years, and in the case of most countries for more than 15 years—based on repeated findings that it remains unsafe to return. In the past year, the Trump administration announced the termination of TPS for over 98% of TPS holders, from six countries. The lawsuit Ramos v. Nielsen concerns the first four of the terminations—of Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti, and El Salvador. This is the first time any TPS termination has been enjoined by a federal court.
More information on the lawsuit, links to the court filings and decisions, and profiles of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit availablehere.
Obama calls on Senate not to fill Ginsburg's vacancy until after election
The Hill
Former President Obama called on the Senate not to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday, urging Republicans to live up to the standard they set in 2016 when they refused to give a hearing to his final nominee, Merrick Garland.
Obama, in a statement responding to Ginsburg's death, praised the late judge as a "warrior for gender equality" who showed "unwavering faith in our democracy and its ideals."
The former president also nodded to Ginsburg's reported statement to her granddaughter before her death that her "most fervent wish" was that her replacement be named by the next president. Ginsburg died earlier Friday. She was 87. "Four and a half years ago, when Republicans refused to hold a hearing or an up-or-down vote on Merrick Garland, they invented the principle that the Senate shouldn’t fill an open seat on the Supreme Court before a new president was sworn in," Obama said.
"A basic principle of the law — and of everyday fairness — is that we apply rules with consistency, and not based on what’s convenient or advantageous in the moment," he continued. "The rule of law, the legitimacy of our courts, the fundamental workings of our democracy all depend on that basic principle.
"As votes are already being cast in this election, Republican Senators are now called to apply that standard," Obama said.
The court's decisions in the coming years "are too consequential to future generations for courts to be filled through anything less than an unimpeachable process," the former president said.
BREAKING NEWS…Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski announces she will not vote to replace RBG on the Supreme Court until after a new president is inaugurated.
That would be a double standard. And I will not support it, she says.