VAAP speaks to WCAX on Haitian TPS
June 28, 2024 update: tps renewed for haitians through february 3, 2026
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2024/06/28/secretary-mayorkas-announces-extension-and-redesignation-haiti-temporary-protected
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Last night, VAAP spoke to WCAX about the precariousness of Haitian parolees and TPS-beneficiaries who face an “immigration status cliff.”
This August, potentially hundreds of Haitians living in Vermont will status if the Biden Administration fails to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians, and fails to fortify the Cuban, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela (CHNV) Parole policy for Haitians long term. Given the critical lack of access to asylum legal help still impacting Vermont, Haitians who risk their temporary Parole or TPS statuses would lose work authorization, become undocumented, and risk facing removal proceedings. View the whole story online here: https://www.wcax.com/2024/06/24/is-time-running-out-haitian-refugees-stay-vermont-legally/.
Beginning in 2010, the country of Haiti was designated by the Federal Government for TPS. However, that designation is set to expire in August 2024. TPS involves the designation of a foreign country as unsafe or inadequate to return to due to emerging country conditions, and gives nationals of designated countries who are already in the U.S. the right to live and work here free from deportation unless and until the TPS designation is lifted. If TPS for Haiti is not extended this summer, many longtime community members - who are majority Black immigrants with language access needs - could be forced to leave their homes and return to unsafe conditions.
On the eve of the designation expiring, Haiti is experiencing spikes in interrelated economic, security, political, and health crises. Gangs are the primary source of violence and instability, as their influence continues to expand over portions of metropolitan Port-au-Prince. Political elites often operationalize gangs, enmeshing criminals and law enforcement. When those who are causing the violence and committing the crimes are propped up by those who are supposed to be upholding the law, no one is kept safe. Rule of law and accountability become only concepts in peoples' imaginations, never seen in practice. Many people in Haiti lack access to healthcare, food, and water, and natural disasters, like earthquakes and tropical storms have only added to the country’s vulnerability.
With this being the case, we hope the Vermont Congressional Delegation will elevate our call on the Biden Administration to renew Haiti’s designation as a country in need of TPS. Linked here is an advocacy email that VAAP sent to our congressional partners to this effect. If Vermonters are able, we invite you to kindly use this email as a sample to register your own voice on the need for permanent solutions for Vermont’s Haitian communities. In order to make change, we have to make noise!
Contact Senator Sanders’ Constituent Services Office
Contact Senator Welch’s Constituent Services Office
Contact Representative Balint’s Constituent Services Office
If you are contacting the delegation for help on a specific case, we recommend only reaching out to one office at a time so as not to cause undue delay by duplicating advocacy efforts.
If any Haitians with TPS lose that status, they will have one year from the day of losing status to apply for asylum. Parolees from every country have one year from the date of entry to the United States to apply for asylum.
Subscribe to VAAP’s newsletter and follow our blog, calendar, and social media to learn about and attend legal help clinics we’ll be delivering to the public over this fall and winter.
While we await news of Haitian TPS redesignation, please note that the Biden Administration has already announced extending the validity of certain Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) issued to Temporary Protected Status (TPS) beneficiaries under the designations of El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan through March 9, 2025.
USCIS reports that they will send a Form I-797, Notice of Action, notifying you if you are affected by this extension:
“If you are a current TPS beneficiary under one of these designations, and you have not yet re-registered for TPS under the most recent extension for that designation, you must submit Form I-821, Application for Temporary Protected Status, during the current re-registration period to keep your TPS benefits. DHS previously extended the re-registration periods for individuals to submit TPS applications:
El Salvador now runs through March 9, 2025;
Honduras now runs through July 5, 2025;
Nepal now runs through June 24, 2025;
Nicaragua now runs through July 5, 2025; and
Sudan now runs through April 19, 2025.
Please note that while the re-registration periods end on different dates, EADs are all extended through the same date: March 9, 2025. Find instructions to re-register for TPS and renew your EAD in the most recent Federal Register notice that extends TPS for your country (or extends and redesignates your country for TPS).”
- USCIS Stakeholder Liaison email, June 25, 2024.
