MomsRising.org | Urge Sen. Tillis to protect our Haitian neighbors

Urge Sen. Tillis to protect our Haitian neighbors – add your name to the letter now!

The US Senate has gone home until after Election Day... and too many senators left without lifting a finger to protect our Haitian neighbors, including Senator Thom Tillis.

Here's the situation: Since Haiti's Temporary Protected Status ended in July, this administration has gone from one deportation flight to Haiti each month to one every week. Since July alone, ICE has forced more than 450 people onto deportation flights. Many had lived in the United States for years, and were separated from US citizen family members, while others had pending asylum claims in the US and were unable to contact their lawyers or appear before an immigration judge before being deported. They are being sent to a country where more than 3,000 people were killed in just the first six months of this year.

More than 13,000 Haitian-Americans call North Carolina home. They care for our elders and our children, build our homes, and raise children who are American citizens.

That's why MomsRising and The Workers Circle are writing to Sen. Thom Tillis, urging him to co-sponsor S. 4814, the bill to restore TPS for Haitians. Thom Tillis has broken with this administration before when he believed it was right. When the Senate returns on November 9, he can be the senator who finally says: enough.

We want thousands of North Carolinians standing behind this letter when we bring it in. Will you add your name today?

Dear Senator Tillis:

We urge you to co-sponsor S. 4814 to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian nationals through 2029. We are writing on behalf of The Workers Circle, a national, secular Jewish organization rooted in more than a century of immigrant rights and pro-democracy work, and MomsRising,an on-the-ground and online grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to increase family economic security, stop discrimination against women and moms, and build a nation where businesses and families can thrive; together, our organizations include 53,107 members in North Carolina, who live in all 100 counties.

On June 25th, the Supreme Court allowed the administration to move forward with terminating TPS for more than 330,000 Haitians who have built lives, families, and livelihoods in this country. This comes even as Haiti remains in the grip of gang violence, political collapse, and a humanitarian emergency that the State Department itself has repeatedly acknowledged makes safe return impossible. The House has already acted, passing a three-year extension for Haitian TPS by a bipartisan vote of 224-204 in April. It is now the Senate's turn.

Haitian TPS holders are not abstractions in a policy debate. According to the U.S. Census, over 13,000 Haitian-Americans live, work, pray, and study in North Carolina. They are essential workers in elder care, health care, and disability services; they are taxpayers, small business owners, baggage handlers, construction workers, homeowners, and parents of American citizen children. Ending their status will not make Haiti safer or America stronger — it will simply throw hundreds of thousands of law-abiding people into crisis and destabilize the communities and workplaces that depend on them. Families are already struggling with the rising costs of child care, health care, and aging and disability care. At a time when our country faces a severe shortage of caregivers, ending Haitian TPS has made these challenges even worse.

Pierre Damas Bell, an honor student, avid soccer player, enthusiastic JROTC participant, and political asylum applicant, planned to study neuroscience and was excited about his future until he was recently forced to wear an ankle monitor. The monitor prevented him from playing soccer or getting a new ROTC uniform; the humiliation and bullying that followed led to his tragic Aug. 31 suicide. Senator Tillis, you have the power to stop further harm to Haitian-Americans like Pierre, who, like the millions of immigrants who have helped build the U.S., just want to live with dignity and contribute meaningfully to our country.

Right now, ICE is grabbing Haitian women, men and children, and putting them on flights to a nation where they would be in danger. Time is of the essence. We urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to co-sponsor S. 4814 and pass it without delay, to ensure that this common-sense extension of TPS becomes law.

Sincerely,

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