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After Congress established TPS in 1990, Washington granted 260,000 Salvadorans, 82,000 Hondurans, and 5,000 Nicaraguans protection, then extended it on October 1, 2008. It lets the Attorney General grant temporary immigration status to undocumented residents unable to return home due to armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other "extraordinary and temporary conditions."
Besides El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras, past recipient countries included Kuwait, Lebanon, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Guinea-Bissau, Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Montserrat, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, and Angola. El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Somalia, and Sudan still have it.
Haitians never got it, yet granting it is the simplest, least expensive form of aid to let them help by sending remittances back to families, more in need now than ever. In 2006, they sent $1.65 billion, the highest percentage from any foreign national group in the world. Cutting it off now is unthinkable.
Nonetheless, until the January 12 quake, TPS status was denied and deportations continued throughout Obama's first year. It's still denied with the Department of Homeland Security saying only that they're temporarily halted because of the current catastrophe. Nonetheless, the South Florida Haitian community is hopeful with Andre Pierre, Haitian-American mayor of North Miami saying on January 13:
"The White House is going to have to come up with something else within the next couple of days or next week at the latest. They are going to have to give TPS."
Miami activists unsuccessfully pushed for it throughout 2009, one of the most active being Cheryl Little, executive director of the Miami-based Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. Expressing frustration she said:
"Repeated calls for the US government to grant TPS to Haitians have been fruitless. If not now, when."
At a January 13 news conference, Representative Kendrick Meek (D. FL) said he believes it will come in "weeks or days," but, so far, the White House is firm in not doing it.
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