The words of the second in command to the new U.S. government administration to regularize its status generate hope, but also caution for the thousands of TPS beneficiaries. They believe that there are many obstacles to be resolved, but in the landscape it certainly presents more possibilities than in previous years.
Statements by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on the priority on President Joe Biden’s agenda to pave the way for permanent residency for the nearly 300,000 Temporary Protection Status (TPS) beneficiaries and another 600,000 young people covered by the Deferred Action Program, DACA, raises many hopes in the Salvadoran beneficiaries of these programs that are counted in more than 200 thousand, but also caution about the implementation of the proposal advanced by Harris a few days to swear in charge.
The TPS National Alliance, which brings together about 70 committees in 30 states of the American Union, the vast majority led by Salvadorans, welcomes the announcement of the elected vice president, given in an interview for one of the television channels Hispanic in the United States; however, he acknowledges that words and will alone are not enough, so they are willing to keep working to see these intentions realized.
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For three years the organized in this movement have maintained a relentless struggle against the decisions of the outgoing Donald Trump administration that proposed the expulsion of these thousands of country workers during his tenure, but crashed against the court decisions that prevented it or gave long to its purpose.
Salvadoran José Palma, leader of the TPS National Alliance and local leader in the state of Massachusetts, says the words of Vice President-elect Harris are a stark contrast to what he has experienced in his four years in office. Republican, and keep the flame alive to see the goal achieved, which will not be entirely easy. Kamala Harris said in a televised interview that the comprehensive migration reform plan will be promoted in the first 100 days of President Biden’s administration and that the plan will include speeding up the transition to a permanent residence card for beneficiaries. of the TPS and DACA.
“The immigration process will be about getting people who have a temporary protection status, particularly dreamers and TPS beneficiaries, to automatically get their residency card,” Harris said, noting that the plan would make a difference compared to the process for those millions of undocumented immigrants whom they will also seek to regularize.
For TPS and DACA the House of Representatives, of democratic majority, approved in June 2019 the proposal “Law of dreams and promises (HR6)”, with which more than 900 thousand workers duly dated by the country’s security agencies, who have had a renewable status by legal stay and are aware of their tax payments, could advance to permanent residence.
However, the proposal came to the full Senate, then controlled by the Republican Party, and its leadership in the upper house, Senator Mitch McConnell, who when an issue was not of interest to the Conservative agenda simply parked it indefinitely, without bringing it to the full debate, so that it prevented even lawmakers in his party in favor of the proposal from having a chance to vote on it.
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Salvadoran José Palma comments that “There is a lot of emotion with these words (from the interview of Vice President-elect Harris), but we must understand that things are happening because of the work that has been done in the community, this it must fill us with joy and drive us to keep working and it leaves us with a huge message that a choice has good or bad consequences, “Palma told El Diari d’Avui from the city of Boston.
This Salvadoran leader says that we must continue to pay close attention because in principle, from the interview, it is not clear what the project would be that would drive the Biden administration.
On the one hand if they would start from the bills that have thrived in one of the chambers of the federal legislature in recent years, or if it would be a new proposal; especially under the consideration that the Democratic majority in the Senate – with the victory of the two seats in Georgia is relative only to the tiebreaker by one vote, thanks to the power that will have the vice president, since they are 50 republican legislators, 48 democrats and 2 independents aligned with the Liberals.
Mardoel Hernández, leader of the National TPS Alliance in the Washington Metropolitan Area, joins with cautious optimism the position of the new administration and acknowledges that this is due to the fact that during these years of work, today vice president elected, being a state senator for California, she repeatedly received representatives of the organization when they were conspiring in the legislature, and that this allows her to identify well these two groups of immigrants.
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“We see a very encouraging picture, a product largely of the work we have done, but we must not neglect, we must understand that the struggle is still uphill, by the tight majority in the Senate,” acknowledges Mardoel Hernandez, a profound change in immigration law, which in his opinion is what is indicated by Harris, a package in which the Tepesians would be, requires more than a simple majority in the upper house.
The TPS National Alliance said in a statement Wednesday that Vice President Kamala Harris’ words testify to the fruit of her four years of struggle, in which they have marched to Washington DC to lobby with lawmakers on constant visits to the Chapters; they are also proof of the fight in federal courts where they faced President Donald Trump, appealing to judges for their right to remain in the country where they have offered more than 20 years of working life with impeccable records showing their good behavior before the law.