Rallies underway nationwide today to urge Congress to protect Haitian TPS holders 

Immigrant families, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, faith leaders, labor allies and immigrant rights advocates are expected to rally in cities across the United States in a massive effort to urge Congress to protect TPS holders and support legislation organizers say would provide permanent legal protections.

The rallies are taking place on Thursday, July 9, one day before they say TPS holders are set to lose their work permits. 

Participants are calling on Congress to vote in favor of legislation, which advocates say would provide permanent protections, including a pathway to citizenship, for TPS holders and their families.

“TPS holders have built their lives in the United States,” Sandra Denis, president and founder of Avanse Ansanm, said in an advisory. “They are raising families, working in hospitals, hotels, restaurants, farms, and businesses, and contributing billions of dollars to the economy every year.” 

The nationwide mobilization, organized by a coalition of Haitian-led groups, follows a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month allowing the Trump administration to move forward with ending protections for TPS holders from Haiti and Syria. 

Organizers say the decision places 1.3 million TPS holders and their families at risk of losing the protections that allow them to live and work in the United States.

Rallies are scheduled in multiple cities, including:

• Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at Walnut and 3rd streets at 5:30 p.m.
• Boston, Massachusetts State House, at 5:30 p.m.
• Chicago, at the Jean Baptiste Point du Sable Monument at 4:30 p.m. CT.
• Miami, at the Little Haiti Cultural Center at 5:30 p.m.
• Brooklyn, New York, at Brooklyn Borough Hall at 4 p.m.
• Bridgeport, Connecticut, at the Government Center (City Hall Annex) at 5:30 p.m.
• San Diego, at the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Courthouse at 11 a.m.
• Washington, D.C., at the U.S. Supreme Court at 5 p.m.

“This is the time to show up,” said Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance in a previous interview with The Haitian Times. “This is the time to call your senator.

“[We] need people of Haitian descent who are comfortable right now in the United States with their U.S. passport and citizenship to stand and make sure that they force their senators, their members of Congress, elected officials to support TPS for Haiti, to support a pathway to permanent residency.”

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