Editorial credit: Maxim Elramsisy/ shutterstock.com

Washington, DC — At campaign events in Arizona yesterday, JD Vance again made clear that a Trump second term would seek to make as many people as possible eligible for deportation – including those here with legal status such as TPS. As The New York Times reported in “Vance Vows an End to Programs for Legal Immigrants,” Vance said the following in a Peoria, AZ event:

“‘What Donald Trump has proposed doing is we’re going to stop doing mass parole. We’re going to stop doing mass grants of Temporary Protected Status’ … Later in Tucson, Mr. Vance deflected questions from local reporters about deporting DACA recipients and restarting family separations at the border. Without specifically addressing DACA, which stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Mr. Vance said ‘we also have to deport people, not just the bad people who came into our country, but people who violated the law coming into this country. We’ve got to be willing to deport them.’”

The Vance comments underscore the key point of a story by Bloomberg’s Andrew Kreighbaum about the stakes of the 2024 campaign for TPS holders. TPS holders have in many cases lived in the US for decades and are important contributors across America, as well as to their families, communities, and employers who rely on them. As Kreighbaum reports:

“The protections for the 16 countries covered—with Lebanon forthcoming—have offered a boon to employers plagued by ongoing labor shortages. They’re set to expire over the next two years without extensions from the Homeland Security Department. That underlines the stakes of the November election, said José Palma, coordinator of the National TPS Alliance and a recipient from El Salvador.”

According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice: 

“This is yet another piece of evidence that the Trump/Vance goal is to make as many immigrants as possible deportable, even those with current legal status such as TPS holders, Dreamers with DACA, and spouses of U.S. citizens eligible for the Keeping Families Together process. Removing these protections would be a humanitarian and economic disaster for America, including for the thousands of employers across America who rely on TPS and DACA recipients as valued employees and the countless families and communities who know these long-settled immigrants as neighbors, friends and co-workers.

It’s another reminder about the stakes of this election. As one party is proposing to end TPS and DACA, deport people by the millions and separate even deeply rooted immigrants, the other is pledging to keep families together and advance American interests. Vice President Harris, if elected, should plan to aggressively use TPS as a statutorily protected process of addressing our country’s foreign policy and domestic policy goals, especially in the absence of Congress finally doing its job and modernizing our immigration system through legislation.”

  #EconomicImpact, #Election2024, #HumanRights, #JDVance, #KeepFamiliesTogether, #Trump2024, DACA, Immigration, TPS