For Immediate Release
Thursday, July 22, 2021
Media Contact
Erik Villalobos, evillalobos@ndlon.org
National TPS Alliance to Biden Administration: Move forward on your promise to protect TPS holders
Nationwide- In response to today’s mediation session between attorneys representing plaintiffs in the Ramos v. Mayorkas lawsuit and the Biden Administration, Crista Ramos, the lead plaintiff and member of the National TPS Alliance, issued the following statement:
“Today marked the second time that our lawyers met with Biden attorneys to discuss the fate of my family and over 400,000 TPS families whose lives have been upended since Trump tried to take away our immigration status and tear apart our families.. We understand that senior officials in the Department of Homeland Security and the White House want to review our request that the Biden Administration re-designate Temporary Protected Status for El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Nepal and Sudan, but we frankly don’t understand why the overtly racist cancellation of TPS by the Trump administration hasn’t been reversed already.
The Biden Administration has the legal authority and the moral imperative to move forward on their promise to protect TPS holders. They must re-designate TPS for El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan. They must also put in place procedures to prevent racist attacks on TPS from future administrations so that our families never have to live through trauma like this again.
As plaintiffs who represent all TPS families, we believe that a successful settlement for this lawsuit would not only mean that TPS would be fully re-designated, but we would also want a denouncement of the racist actions of the previous administration which threatened our families. And while we recognize that a settlement cannot provide our families with green cards, it could be a strong step forward towards this main objective by calling on congress to finally grant a permanent residency to all TPS Holders.”
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The National TPS Alliance is a grassroots organization comprised of over 50 committees nationwide, advocating for the permanent residency of beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status from the countries of El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, Nicaragua, Nepal, Syria, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Yemen
For legal questions please contact the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at CILPpress@law.ucla.edu