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Tag: asylum

Barring Pathways to Safety: IINE Statement on Supreme Court’s Decisions on TPS for Haiti and Syria and Asylum Seekers

Written by Christina Duran on . Posted in Advocacy, Blog, Haitian Immigrants, Press Releases/Statements.

Today’s Supreme Court’s decisions to allow the presidential administration to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians in the U.S. and block asylum seekers at the border are cruel and inhumane. 

These decisions give the administration unfettered power to bar people seeking safety in the U.S. through legal pathways, and to remove the over 1.3 million TPS holders already here under U.S. protection and strip them of their work authorization. As a result, families will be torn apart; individuals will be forced to return to the unsafe country conditions the U.S. has warned its citizens of; employers will lose hardworking individuals; and the U.S. will be violating a century of commitment to help protect others threatened by persecution and oppression. 

In recent years, IINE has welcomed and proudly served thousands of people from Haiti and helped several hundred apply for TPS. This news is devastating, but we will not abandon our neighbors, coworkers, and friends who have put down roots and have made our communities stronger and more vibrant.  There are approximately 200,000 Haitian TPS holders in the U.S. workforce. They are business owners, nursing assistants and caregivers taking care of our elderly, agricultural workers, and construction workers integral to our economy and prosperity. 

With 1 in 70 people forcibly displaced across the globe, the United States should not be closing our doors and threatening newcomers who give so much to our nation. Instead, we should be creating more pathways for legal immigration and citizenship.  

At IINE, we will continue to advocate for and pursue every available pathway to maximize our clients’ protections under the law. We urge Congress to act swiftly to provide emergency protections for those at risk of losing status and call on employers to assess work authorization individually rather than making broad assumptions.

Learn more about how to get involved.

A Message From the President & CEO: Here’s Why We Should Fight the Trump Administration’s Proposed Policy

Written by Jeff Thielman on . Posted in Advocacy, Blog, Press Releases/Statements.

A message from IINE CEO, Jeff Thielman, on new federal guidelines released this week

“A well-founded fear of persecution.” Since 1951, that phrase has been the global standard for asylum-seekers desperate for a safe future. “Fear of persecution” is a lawyerly way of generalizing warfare, gang violence, discrimination, genocide, corruption, racism, and religious and ethnic conflict. For all of those reasons and more, people have come to the U.S. to seek asylum. Without a plan, without their belongings, without any thought other than the pursuit of life and liberty.

This week, the United States of America ignored domestic law and a 68-year-old treaty-bound tradition of offering refuge to the world’s most vulnerable families by effectively terminating the asylum application process for Central American families.

The policy change is short – just 340 words in a “Procedural Modification” on Asylum Eligibility. But, with those 340 words, the U.S. federal government has strategically condemned to danger and even death, thousands of men, women, and children who have a legitimate, well-founded fear of persecution.

Each year the International Institute of New England serves hundreds of people from the Northern Triangle – Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras – who inspire us with their grit, generous spirit, and gratitude. Our caseworkers will help 200 unaccompanied and separated children from this region reunite with family members in New England. Many of the 1,500 people who will take part in our English, skills training, and career placement programs in 2019 are from Central America.

As you read this, people from the Northern Triangle who cannot return home because their lives would be in danger are working in restaurants, hotels, hospitals, manufacturing facilities and other industries throughout New England. They are paying taxes, raising families, and building a better community. They are our neighbors and friends.

The administration’s new asylum policy is wrong, amoral, contrary to our laws and traditions, and ultimately against our own national interests. It must not stand.