Speech #CREC-2017-05-18-pt1-PgH4317_t1

Mr. Speaker, a few days ago, I received a letter from a third grade student at the Brooklyn Friends School and the Kane Street Synagogue Hebrew School named Elijah. Elijah wrote: At our synagogue, we learned that welcoming a stranger is an important mitzvah, and I know that my people were immigrants and sometimes refugees trying to find a new home in the USA. So it is important to me that we extend our welcome to refugees from Haiti. Elijah is right. The people of Haiti have suffered through numerous tragedies over the past few years alone. They have experienced a devastating and catastrophic earthquake, tragic cholera epidemic, ongoing food scarcity crisis, deadly hurricanes, and continued flooding. For these reasons, the Obama administration designated Haiti for temporary protected status in 2010, and redesignated it four times thereafter. However, Haiti's TPS designation will expire in July if the administration does not act immediately. That is why I organized with my colleagues of the Congressional Black Caucus and called for DHS Secretary John Kelly to redesignate Haiti for an additional 18 months of TPS. We also asked DHS to issue a new TPS designation that would include the tens of thousands of Haitians who are in the United States but are not covered by the existing TPS designation. The continuing humanitarian crisis on the ground in Haiti should make this an easy call. But news reports indicate that the acting head of USCIS, James McCament, is looking for evidence of crimes committed by Haitians to use as a pretext for ending Haiti's TPS designation. Such actions are part of the Trump administration's attempt to depict immigrants as criminals. They are also part of a flagrant effort to obscure the fact that TPS is based on the conditions on the ground in Haiti rather than the actions of some TPS beneficiaries here in the United States. I call on Director Kelly to ignore these misguided voices and instead listen to people like Elijah. Human decency demands that the Department of Homeland Security extend temporary protected status to all Haitians present in the United States prior to November 4, 2016, as the country continues to rebuild.