SIREN Condemns the Termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Nepal
/Media Contact: Erik Schnabel, Communications Manager
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it would be terminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for people from Nepal who had been granted this status after the devastating earthquake that hit that country in 2015. The termination will take effect June 24, 2019. This announcement follows a trend by the Trump Administration to end TPS for the nationals of almost every country this has been applied to, including people from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Liberia, and Sudan. What is clear to those of us who support people from these countries is that the decision to end TPS for Nepal, just as the decision to end TPS for other countries, was not based on facts or changes in the country conditions that originally created the need for this protection. Rather this is one more step in the Trump Administration’s war on immigrants, that is disproportionately being waged on people of color and immigrants from the Global South.
SIREN condemns in the strongest terms the termination of TPS for people from Nepal, just as it has condemned the ending of TPS for people from every country that has been ended. SIREN’s Executive Director Maricela Gutiérrez made the following statement, “We are once again calling out the Trump Administration for its callous ending of TPS for people from another country, this time for the Nepali community. Each one of these decisions is devastating for people who have lived in our communities, been our neighbors and co-workers, and who want nothing more than to stay in their adopted homelands. It’s clear that the Trump Administration does not govern on the basis of facts or compassion. But if there was any doubt, today shows this once more. We call on DHS and the Trump Administration to reconsider its decision to end TPS for Nepal, just as we condemn the end of TPS for all people who have seen the possibility of continuing to live in their adopted country legally ended overnight. We also urge Congress to act immediately with compassion to pass a permanent solution to the people that are finding the end to their ability to stay in the U.S. legally when their TPS status is ended.”
Maricela Gutiérrez - Services, Immigrant Rights, and Education Network
