Update July 20th: Trump Administration extends TPS for Somalis until March 2020, see here.
Frankly, I don’t know why they still have TPS for Somalis when we have admitted over 100,000 Somalis as permanent refugees. Tens of thousands of permanent Somali refugees are in Minnesota alone.
And, you should know that in order for those here on TPS, the temporary refugees were supposed to have been in the country (usually they were here illegally) before TPS was designated for their country. It is not an on-going opportunity for certain immigrants to get in and then say—gee I want to apply for TPS.
Here is the Minneapolis Star Tribune reporting on the hissy-fit emanating from the Somali Muslim ‘community.’
By the way, all previous administrations—Republican and Democrat—are at fault for creating this ‘crisis’ as each subsequent one extended the 18-month TPS designation over and over again.
Feds set to rule by Thursday on special status for 250 Somalis
Hundreds of Somalis who fled violence and famine in their home country could be forced to leave if the Trump administration ends a special immigration program that has allowed them to live and work here legally.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will decide by Thursday whether it will extend temporary legal protections to approximately 250 Somalis who sought refuge in the United States, including some who have been living in this country for nearly three decades. A majority of those who would be affected live in Minnesota, which is home to the nation’s largest concentration of Somali-Americans.
The special designation for Somalia was first approved by President George H.W. Bush in 1991 in response to a brutal civil war, and has since been extended 22 times under multiple presidents. Known as Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, the designation has shielded many Somalis from deportation and enabled them to build families and businesses here.
Ending the program will force those migrant families into an agonizing decision: leave the country or risk becoming illegal immigrants facing deportation. Many TPS holders are married to legal immigrants and have children who are U.S. citizens, which means some Somali families would be forced to separate if the special status is not extended.
Immigration advocates warned that many Somalis facing loss of their protected status would recede into the shadows, like the roughly 12 million immigrants in the United States illegally. Those returning to Somalia from Minnesota would face a bleak future in a country still stricken by armed conflict and a devastating drought, said immigration advocates.
“Terminating TPS would essentially be a death sentence” for Somalis forced to return, said Mustafa Jumale, co-founder of the Black Immigrant Collective, an advocacy group for black immigrants and their families, at a news conference Tuesday. “Given the option of going back to face certain violence, many would choose to become undocumented.”
It is widely expected that the Trump administration will rescind Somalia’s special status, based on the president’s past comments about Somali refugees and his increasingly hard-line stance on immigration. Shortly before the 2016 election, Trump singled out Somalis during a trip to Minnesota, saying large numbers of Somali refugees were coming in to the state without proper vetting and were spreading extremist views.
[….]
The Department of Homeland Security has already revoked temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from seven countries, including El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Liberia, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan. All of these immigrant groups were given more than a year to leave.
TPS needs to be abolished entirely because it has been abused as we can see with this case. Once their status has been extended innumerable times, temporary migrants put down roots and then scream bloody murder that they can’t be uprooted now!