Trump’s attack on one class of immigrants won’t make America great

It isn’t always that the law in the United States manages to express the nation’s highest values —  that the noble things we say about ourselves as a nation are reflected in what we actually do.

When that happens, it’s inspiring. A prime example is Temporary Protected Status, or TPS. This is the protection we offer to migrants living here who cannot safely return home.

For hundreds of thousands of people displaced by war, political upheaval, natural disasters or other reasons, TPS is a precious opportunity — a chance to live and work in the United States without fear of arrest or deportation.

It should be no surprise that TPS is under threat from Donald Trump. The president ran on a platform of scapegoating, suspicion and fear.

{mosads}He has premised his entire presidency on trying to keep refugees and migrants out of the country, and his administration has worked to fulfill his promise to arrest, punish and expel millions of immigrants living and working here.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly recently gave 50,000 Haitians a mere six-month extension of their TPS, which was supposed to be enough time for them to settle their affairs and get ready to go home — to a country struggling with a cholera epidemic, political instability and chronic poverty laid upon the lingering effects of a catastrophic hurricane in 2016 and the devastating earthquake of 2010.

Given Haiti’s fragile state, Kelly’s eviction notice makes no sense — unless it is seen through the lens of xenophobia and cruelty.

The newest threats against those with TPS illustrates that the Trump Administration is engaged in a war of attrition against all non-white migrants in the United States.

Having gained popularity by conjuring the imagined threat of illegal invaders, President Donald Trump and his administration are now working to make life miserable for all migrants of color, including those with lawful status or mixed family homes.

This strategy — to make life worse in the U.S. for immigrant families than it was in their home countries — was the stated intent in Arizona’s notorious SB1070. It is a goal shared by Trump’s advisors.

In the end, it only works if migrants succumb to what Mitt Romney once famously described as “self-deportation.” 

But we will not be silent.

To the contrary.

This week in Washington, hundreds of TPS recipients are gathering to speak out for themselves and for their families. They come from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Liberia, Somalia, Haiti, Yemen and other struggling countries.

They are hoping to persuade the White House and Congress to see the value in TPS, to protect it, and to offer routes to permanent status for those who have put down roots in the U.S.

The moral argument is on their side. So are the practical facts. A new study based on a nationwide survey of TPS recipients, conducted by Cecilia Menjívar at the Center for Migration Research in the University of Kansas, found that the program is not just vastly beneficial to the approximately 323,000 migrants who receive it, but to American society at large.

TPS holders work and pay taxes. Their rate of participation in the labor force is 88.5 percent, much higher than the 62.9 percent of the U.S. population overall.

They work in construction, painting, driving, child care, cleaning, cooking, gardening and many other occupations. About one-third own homes, and many volunteer in civic organizations, committees and community groups.

TPS holders — who have demonstrated that they pose no national security threat, and regularly reapply to keep their status — can be seen as a good precursor for what the country might do if it ever enacts a large-scale legalization program for the millions of immigrants among us who have been deprived of a route to citizenship and political equality.

Like the much larger population of 11 million undocumented immigrants, people with TPS are strivers who are seizing the opportunities they have been given, and doing much good for America while they are living here.

Extending their welcome, furthering their integration into society, will have a vast range of benefits for them and for all of us.

To be sure, the existing TPS program is very limited in what it offers. It’s not legal status, and it does not offer a path to citizenship, nor does it allow recipients to sponsor family members to move here.

It is certainly no substitute for large scale immigrant legalization that is long overdue.

But as a temporary legal measure, it is a way to give thousands of migrants a practical shot at stability and success.

It reflects compassion and humaneness, and it does the country good. And if it offered permanent route citizenship, it would be a step forward in resolving the inequality facing an entire generation of immigrants who are being deprived the same opportunities as settlers before them.

The Trump-Kelly alternative — telling TPS holders to get out of America, and stay out — reflects deplorably on who we as Americans say we are.

TPS is a program that reveals America at its best: as a safe haven that welcomes  threatened, tempest-tossed migrants, a country that is willing to grow by putting its values into practice.

Pablo Alvarado is the executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and a former TPS recipient. Martha Arevalo is the executive director of the Central American Resource Center.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.