FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 10, 2020
Contact: Nick Voutsinos, Jobs With Justice, nick@jwj.org, 717-413-7613
Immigrants, Essential Workers on Temporary Status in US Win Nine-Month Extension from Trump Administration
Washington, DC – Yesterday, as a result of tireless organizing and legal battles taken on by immigrant and worker activists, President Trump’s Department of Homeland Security capitulated to the movement, extending the Temporary Protected Status designation for hundreds of thousands of immigrants living and working in the United States. The extension will go from the current expiration date of January 4, 2021 through October 4, 2021 — lasting nine months.
This is a huge victory for working people and immigrants, especially when considering that activists won this extension in the face of the most anti-immigrant White House in nearly a century.
“Four years ago when he took the White House, Donald Trump made it clear that his top priority was to target, detain, and forcibly relocate members of our immigrant communities, including the folks who were living and working in the US for years,” said Jobs With Justice Senior Organizer Ada Fuentes. “Hope was hard to come by, but that didn’t stop us from fighting back. Four years later, we have shown the power we have over racism — we won the reinstatement of DACA, the extension of TPS, and we kicked an anti-immigrant racist out of the White House.”
This victory also comes as a great relief to the countless communities across the United States who rely on TPS holders for essential work. An estimated 131,300 TPS holders are serving as essential workers during the pandemic — they keep our grocery shelves stocked, our hospitals prepared, and our communities running.
“Immigrants are essential to this country, and this victory adds to this fact,” said Fuentes. “But make no mistake, we need permanent protections for our TPS holders and DACA recipients. In this pandemic, immigrant workers were the first to be thrown into the frontlines, the first to get sick, and the last to get relief — in fact, most haven’t gotten any relief since the pandemic began. This needs to change. And after undoing the harm Trump has done, the Biden administration must enact permanent protective status for our immigrant communities.”
###
Jobs With Justice is the country’s leading nonprofit in the fight for workplace and economic democracy. Comprising a national network of local affiliates in nearly every state, Jobs With Justice brings together coalitions of unions, worker organizations, community groups, students, and faith institutions to win concrete improvements in people’s lives.
