Thousands face deportation to danger as Trump targets temporary protections | US immigration

Several thousand immigrants living in the United States from certain countries considered risky or dangerous are at the mercy of the American judges and the order of the Trump Administration to reduce their work permit and their protection against deportation.

Since its entry into office, the Trump administration has announced the end of the temporary protection status (TPS) for citizens of seven of the 15 countries previously designated for a shelter within the framework of this legal umbrella – the Ministry of Homeland Security (DHS) citing improved conditions in some of these places.

The seven countries are Afghanistan, Haiti, Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua, Nepal and Cameroon, plunging many TPS holders in these US immigrant communities in confusion and fear and inviting success groups and advocacy to go to the courts to protect them, with successful departures to date.

On Wednesday, a federal court of appeal shaved with the Trump administration and interrupted, for the moment, an order from a lower court which had kept temporary protections for 60,000 migrants from Central America and Nepal.

This means that the republican administration can be oriented towards the abolition of around 7,000 people from Nepal whose TPS designations expired on August 5. TPS designations and legal status of 51,000 Hondurans and 3,000 Nicaragues should expire on September 8, when they will become eligible for the withdrawal of the United States.

The National TPS Alliance Group had continued, alleging that the administration plan was illegal.

In the case of Honduras and Nicaragua, some of their nationals in the United States have held TPS status for over 25 years, because Hurricane Mitch caused devastating damage to the two countries in the late 90s.

In July, internal security secretary Kristi Noem said that he was sure to return people to Nicaragua and Honduras.

However, the United Nations declared in a report that the Nicaraguan regime of co -chairs Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo “deliberately transformed the country into an authoritarian state where the voices of the opposition are reduced to silence and that the population is confronted with persecution and economic reprisals”.

And in April, the American Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said: “The Nicaraguan regime is an enemy of humanity.”

Meanwhile, Honduras has the highest femicide rate in Latin America, according to Human Rights Watch, with around seven femicides per 100,000 women, and across the country, the UN says that 1.6 million people live with urgent humanitarian needs out of 7 million inhabitants. In the United States, more than 50,000 Hondurans are TPS holders.

Nepal was initially designated for the TPS in 2015 after an earthquake disrupted and moved millions. Noem said that there is “notable improvements in environmental disasters and response capacity”. Earlier this year, in the middle Economic and political instability in the country, Nepal experienced violent clashes between civilians and the police.

The Guardian previously reported how the Trump administration expelled the Bhoutani nepalis who fled ethnic cleaning and now live in a refugee camp.

Meanwhile, last month, a court of appeal authorized the Trump administration to put an end to PDP for more than 8,000 Afghans and 5,000 Cameroonians. In the case of the population of Afghan immigrants in the United States, many, some of which have helped US forces in Afghanistan before the gunshot by the soldiers in 2021, are already at risk of expulsion.

Freshta Abbasi, researcher in Afghanistan for Human Rights Watch, says that any person deported to Afghanistan, slowed down by Taliban, could face persecution or torture.

“For example, for the expulsion of Afghan refugees from Pakistan, we were able to document cases which, in particular the former employees of the government, once back in Afghanistan, they are taken up by the authorities and that they are arbitrarily and tortured; it is a real risk for anyone is deported to Afghanistan,” said Abasi.

She added: “The Taliban not only removed the fundamental rights of women, but they also took the autonomy of women. I spoke to women in Afghanistan who told me that they felt in a prison. The United States knew that Afghanistan is not a safe country.”

The Ministry of Internal Security has cited the increase in tourism as a factor in its evaluation that the Afghans can be expelled there, with the article of the Federal US register on the revocation of the TPS for Afghans saying: “Tourism in Afghanistan has increased, as the removal rates have decreased.”

However, the United States has also issued a travel warning to Afghanistan, advising Americans not to visit the country due to civilian disorders, crime, terrorism and unjustified risk of detention. The International Criminal Court has published arrest mandates against two Taliban leaders, accused of crimes against humanity for the persecution of women and girls.

An elderly British couple detained without charge after years of life in Afghanistan may die in detention, have warned relatives. And the Afghans living in or with the prospect of returning to Afghanistan who are known or even simply suspected by the Taliban for helping the American or British forces could have a deadly danger.

The US Congress created TPS as part of the 1990 immigration law, signed by the president of the time, George HW Bush.

The 1 million estimated TPS in the United States not only used the advantages of the program to support themselves in the American workplace, but also to contribute around $ 21 billion per year to the economy, while paying $ 5.2 billion in taxes, according to the advocacy group FWD.US.

The Trump administration has also announced that it will end the PD for Haitian immigrants legally living in the United States as part of the program. The United States Embassy in Haiti warns people not to go to the Caribbean nation, citing kidnapping and civil disturbances, as is the website of the American State Department.

While Noem recognized that the conditions in Haiti remained disastrous, she said that it was not in the national interest of the United States to continue the TPS program for Haitians.

The poorest country of the western hemisphere, Haiti has been engulfed in the political tumult since the assassination of the president of the time, Jovenel Moïse, in 2021. The descent of the country already registered in crisis moved 1.3 million Haitians, according to the International Migration Organization, and local authorities estimate that 5.7 million in the face of food insecurity.

It is estimated that 340,000 Haitians in the United States which are currently covered by TP – a designation initially carried out in 2010 after the devastating earthquake that year – will no longer have this protection against deportation after September 2.

Guerline Jozef, executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, a support group for immigrants in the United States, said that some of the people already expelled in Haiti “are simply deposited” and that “their family relatives do not know what happened to them”.

“TPS cessation is a total reluctance to recognize the humanity of these immigrants, that many of them have been in the country for more than 15 years. Many of them have been born and grew up here,” said Jozef.

“The whole community of black immigrants does not correspond to the agenda, or is not deemed sufficiently worthy, or is not considered enough of the protection these people need. We are at a point where they haven’t care for how long they are here, that they have paid their taxes, that they have companies. ”

The capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, remains largely under the control of gangs and armed conflicts have made the city inaccessible both in the north and south.

Violent groups dominate the city center and the surroundings, with only two districts spared, where the camps for people displaced internally have multiplied, housing tens of thousands of people who fled violence.

In this partial state, the prospect of mass deportations of the United States is alarming local organizations which already have trouble dealing.

“Where are families whose houses have been burned go?” Katia Boné, coordinator of the support group for returnees and refugees (Garr) in Haiti, asked.

Its organization already operates along the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, helping people expelled daily in Haiti under a repression by the Dominican government launched last October.

Goodness fears that a similar wave of the United States overwhelms already fragile systems.

“Expelled Haitians will not be able to return to their family or their communities. I visit the travel camps. I see how people survive. This is inhuman-the impact would be devastating, “she said, adding:” There is not much hope. It seems that we are alone, and no one comes to help you. ”

Meanwhile, the Trump administration was considering Honduras and Nicaragua as places to send people who are not originally originally from the United States and have entered into an agreement with Rwanda and, Wednesday, with Uganda.

There has been an outcry in many directions when the United States government expelled, without regular procedure, a group of people from various countries in South Sudan and Eswatini this summer.

The Associated Press contributed the reports