The Biden Administration agreed to restore TPS for nationals from four countries

People who work all the time to secure the TPS for thousands of immigrants. File photo

We got the news today that the Biden administration finally agreed to restore Temporary Protected Status for long-term U.S. residents from El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal whose legal protections Trump had cruelly stripped away.

This news is welcome relief – and the direct result of years of tireless struggles by TPS holders, migrant justice organizations, and allies in the faith and solidarity movements. We celebrate alongside them today.

We also recommit ourselves to the struggle to push Biden to take stronger action to protect migrants, refugees and their families – and to change the policies that cause so many to have to flee their homelands in the first place.

This spring, we were invited to present at an exciting conference in DC, “In Search of a New Policy for Latin America and the Caribbean: Burying 200 Years of the Monroe Doctrine.”

Asked to speak on a panel about migration, our Program Director Yesenia Portillo delivered an incisive and powerful analysis about how U.S. policies – past and present – have contributed to the displacement of hundreds of thousands from Central America.

(Watch and share highlights here on Facebook or check out the full discussion here)

She laid out how corporate takeover of lands and essential natural resources displace communities, and how state security forces backed by the U.S., ostensibly to fight the War on Drugs, repress the grassroots movements that rise up in resistance.

But more precisely, she interrogated how the Democratic party, in their promotion of a pro-corporate agenda in Central America, has co-opted the left’s assertion that there are urgent and valid reasons why people are forced to migrate, and how mainstream media has tried to spin the Biden-Harris plan to “address the root causes of migration” as “innovative” and progressive,” as opposed to a doubling down on many all-too familiar policies, from militarization to public-private partnerships.

We saw this coming before Biden took office. That’s why we helped organize a delegation to Central America last year with a group of progressive Democrats in Congress who were willing to ask: “Are U.S. policies really helping or hurting?” (I think you can guess the answer!) and, more importantly, “What can we be doing instead?”

Since the delegation ended, we’ve been asked to bring this analysis to Congressional town halls, college classrooms and student groups, community radio stations, academic conferences, and more.

But we know that there are many more people and organizations out there – those committed to social and economic justice, to migrant solidarity, to environmental defense – who are clamoring for this information. And we need more hands on deck to deliver it to them!

We’re hoping to hire TWO new organizers this summer who can give presentations and teach-ins, write articles and pitch interviews, organize new members through our legislative campaigns, and more.

Your gift can help us ensure we have the funds we need to do it! Will you make a generous gift today?