Officials at the Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday that officials would not re-extend the “Temporary Protected Status” permits for 59,000 Haitians who have been living in the United States since their homeland was damaged by an earthquake in 2010.
The decision to not extend the TPS status is required by law, said a senior administration official. He said:
The acting secretary of homeland security, Elaine Duke, today will announce her decision to terminate the Temporary Protected Status designation for Haiti, with a delayed effective date of 18 months to allow for an orderly transition before the designation finally terminates on July 22, 2019 … based on all available information, the acting secretary determined that the extraordinary and temporary conditions as a result of the 2010 earthquake that in turn formed as the basis for Haiti’s TPS designation no longer exists, and thus pursuant to statute, the current TPS designation, must not be exxtened.
The 59,000 TPS Haitians now in the United States can either return home or seek alternative legal status to remain, the official said. After that date, the Haitians will be treated as illegal aliens if they do not have alternative legal status, such as citizenship via marriage. Many of the 59,000 Haitians were living illegally in the United States when the earthquake hit their homeland.
The hard-nosed decision to enforce the law is a signal that the additional TPS population of roughly 300,000 TPS-holders from El Salvador and Honduras will also be required to go home after their current TPS status expires over the next several months.
The repatriation decision sharpens the pressure on congressional Democrats who are insisting that the federal government should extend work-permits for the 50,000 Haitians, plus roughly 300,000 other migrants holding “Temporary Protected Status” permits.
Democrats are also threatening to hold up the federal 2018 budget unless the GOP and President Donald Trump agree to provide a no-strings amnesty for at least 3 million so-called ‘Dreamer’ illegal immigrants — including the 690,000 DACA beneficiaries — plus the 350,000 TPS holders.
President Trump has repeatedly said he expects the Democrats to offer some benefits to Americans if they want to keep the illegals in the United States.
He has also told legislators in Congress his immigration principles for any deal, which include a halt to chain migration and the visa lottery program. His principles are very popular and very ambitious because they would halve the annual immigration inflow of new workers and future voters. In turn, the reduced inflow would pressure employers to offer higher wages to American employees and would pressure Democrats to offer pro-American policies to American voters.
The senior administration official repeated the offer to negotiate with Democrats, saying “the administration has indicated to Congress that we are going to work with them, and come up with a solution for this if they see fit.”
By dangling the offer of a permanent residency for the 350,000 TPS migrants, — plus the 3 million ‘dreamer’ illegals — Trump is taking a political risk. Many of his supporters oppose any amnesty, and many doubt the willingness of Congress or the courts to enforce the pro-American side of any deal.
But he is also forcing the Democrats to pick one of two bad choices.
The Democrats’ options would be to accept pro-American limits on chain-migration in exchange for getting some form of residency for the illegals and TPS migrants — or refuse any compromise before the 2018 election. That is a tough choice for Democrats — and their business allies — because they do not want to give up chain-migration nor anger voters.
Left-wing groups are already trying to keep the large populations of TPS-holders in the United States. In an article headlined “TPS Holders Are Integral Members of the U.S. Economy and Society,” the Center for American Progress claimed that “TPS holders are essential contributors to the U.S. economy and society.”
But the data shows that TPS holders are generally unassimilated and uncompetitive in the U.S. economy, and their departure from the labor market would increase pressure on U.S. companies to raise Americans’ wages and to invest in more labor-saving machinery. For example, a 2017 study of TPS holders, published in the Journal on Migration and Human Security, said:
The five leading industries in which TPS beneficiaries from these countries work are: construction (51,700), restaurants and other food services (32,400), landscaping services (15,800), child day care services (10,000), and grocery stores (9,200) …
Ten percent of El Salvadoran, nine percent of the Haitian, and six percent of the Honduran TPS beneficiaries are married to a legal resident …
Eighty-seven percent of the TPS population from these countries speaks at least some English, and slightly over one-half speak English well, very well, or only English…
Median household income was $50,000 for Salvadorans, $40,000 for Hondurans, and $45,000 for Haitians. In 2015, US median household income was about $56,000.
To keep the TPS-holders in the United States, Democrats argue that they have 273,200 U.S.-born citizen children, and argue that remittances from TPS-holders help their home economies.
On November 6, the DHS announced in a statement it had delayed a decision on sending Honduran migrants home. “Based on the lack of definitive information regarding conditions on the ground compared to pre-Hurricane Mitch, the Acting Secretary has not made a determination at this time, thereby automatically extending the current TPS designation for Honduras for six months – through July 5, 2018,” said the statement.
In early January, the DHS must also decide whether to extend TPS status for 200,000 people from El Salvador, who were permitted to stay in 2001 after their country was hit by earthquakes.
Four million Americans turn 18 each year and begin looking for good jobs in the free market.
But the federal government inflates the supply of new labor by annually accepting 1 million new legal immigrants, by providing almost 2 million temporary work-permits to foreigners, by providing work-visas to roughly 500,000 temporary workers and doing little to block the employment of roughly 8 million illegal immigrants.
The Washington-imposed economic policy of mass-immigration floods the market with foreign labor, spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.
The cheap-labor policy has also reduced investment and job creation in many interior states because the coastal cities have a surplus of imported labor. For example, almost 27 percent of zip codes in Missouri had fewer jobs or businesses in 2015 than in 2000, according to a new report by the Economic Innovation Group. In Kansas, almost 29 percent of zip codes had fewer jobs and businesses in 2015 compared to 2000, which was a two-decade period of massive cheap-labor immigration.
Americans tell pollsters that they strongly oppose amnesties and cheap-labor immigration, even as most Americans also want to favor legal immigrants and many also sympathize with illegals. Because of the successful cheap-labor strategy, wages for men have remained flat since 1973, and a growing percentage of the nation’s annual income is shifting to investors and away from employees.