68 Organizations Call on State Department to End Delays On TPS

The Honorable Antony Blinken Secretary
United States Department of State
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520

Re: Request for Review and Engagement on TPS Designation Delays at the U.S. State Department

Dear Secretary Blinken:

The 68 undersigned organizations write to express our deep concern at reports that the State Department is obstructing immigrants in the United States from receiving life-saving protection under Temporary Protected Status. This includes failing to issue country conditions reports in a timely fashion as well as not supporting TPS designations that experts find clearly warranted under the law and in the service of vital domestic and foreign policy interests.

In your first major speech as Secretary of State, you said that “if we do our jobs right, you’ll be able to check our work, to see the links between what we’re doing around the world and [our] goals and values.”1 Those goals and values included working toward a “humane and effective immigration system.”2 After checking your work, it is our conclusion that the Department’s handling of TPS designations does not align with your stated values.

The State Department has a unique role and perspective in developing TPS recommendations for the Secretary of Homeland Security.3 We are concerned that your Department’s conduct falls short of providing objective assessments of existing country conditions. In doing so, the Administration’s standing with immigrants and similarly vulnerable communities, and our systems of humanitarian protection, are undermined. TPS continues to be one of the few blanket protections in our immigration system and a key piece of our humanitarian and foreign policy strategy. The State Department’s objective consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security on whether people returned to countries from the United States would face life- or freedom-threatening circumstances is a key factor in the integrity of these protections.

We respectfully request that the Department immediately review, at a minimum, Cameroon, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Lebanon, and Mauritania for a TPS designation. Additionally, we request an urgent stakeholder engagement with your office, the Office of Population and International Migration, and representatives of the relevant regional bureaus to discuss these issues. Please contact Lora Adams at lora@masadc.com.

 

Sincerely,

National

Adhikaar

African Communities Together

Alianza Americas

American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)

American Muslim Bar Association (AMBA)

American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)

Amnesty International USA

Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP)

Border Network for Human Rights

Cameroon Advocacy Network

Catholic Labor Network

Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.

Center for Gender & Refugee Studies

Christian Reformed Church Office of Social Justice

Church World Service

Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, U.S. Provinces

Disciples Refugee and Immigration Ministries

Emgage Action

Franciscan Action Network

Haitian Bridge Alliance

Human Rights First

ICNA Council for Social Justice

Immigration Hub

Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti

Justice Action Center

Justice in Motion

Leadership Conference of Women Religious

MPower Change

National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd

National Council of Jewish Women

National Immigration Law Center

National Immigration Project (NIPNLG)

National Partnership for New Americans

Presbyterian Church USA

Presente.org

Refugees International

Revolutionary Love Project

Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights

South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT)

Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)

The United Methodist Church – General Board of Church and Society

UndocuBlack Network

Union for Reform Judaism

Unitarian Universalist Service Committee

United Stateless

UNWLA National

Win Without War

Witness at the Border 

State/Local

Central American Resource Center

Central American Resource Center of Northern CA – CARECEN SF

Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America – CRLN

Connecticut Shoreline Indivisible

CRECEN

Familias Unidas en Acción

Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative

Immigrant Legal Center of Boulder County

Interfaith Welcome Coalition – San Antonio

Legal Aid Justice Center

Make the Road New York

New York Immigration Coalition

NH Conference United Church of Christ Immigrant and Refugee Support Group

The Advocates for Human Rights

The Haitian Legal Network, Inc.

The Legal Aid Society (New York)

The Legal Project

United African Organization

Wind of the Spirit Immigrant Resource Center

Yemeni American Merchants Association

 

cc: Catherine Holt, Director, PRM/PIM


Endnotes

1 Anthony J. Blinken, “A Foreign Policy for the American People” (speech, Washington DC, March 3, 2021), U.S. Department of State, https://www.state.gov/a-foreign-policy-for-the-american-people/.

2 Ibid.

3 Playing Politics With Humanitarian Protections: How Political Aims Trumped U.S. National Security and the Safety Of TPS Recipients, S. Prt. 116-15, at 12 (2019).


PHOTO CAPTION: Demonstrators participate in the March For TPS Justice outside the White House in Washington, DC, February 12, 2019. Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images.