Originally posted by the 1804 Movement for all Immigrants. The Party for Socialism and Liberation stands in solidarity with this demonstration.
The New York-based 1804 Movement for All Immigrants, in conjunction with groups from Massachusetts, Florida, and Washington, DC, will rally in front of the White House tomorrow to demand permanent residency for the 400,000 immigrants who currently hold Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and that President Donald Trump publicly apologize for calling Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations “shithole countries.”
The rally will be held on Saturday, May 19, 2018 from noon to 4 p.m. in Lafayette Park as well as on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The demonstration comes on the heels of the May 8 Washington Post story that the U.S. embassies in Haiti, El Salvador, and Honduras warned against ending TPS for some 300,000 immigrants from those countries, but then-Secretary of State “Rex Tillerson dismissed the advice and joined other administration officials in pressuring leaders at the Department of Homeland Security to strip the immigrants of their protections.”
The 1804 Movement for All Immigrants was formed by many Haitian grassroots organizations and sympathetic U.S. groups in direct response to President Donald Trump’s provocative statements during a meeting with Congressional leaders on Jan. 11. The Trump administration has also terminated TPS for six of the 10 nations that currently hold it.
The demonstrators will also demand that President Trump stop his warlike policies against Palestine, Venezuela, Iran, and Syria. The coalition calls for U.S. and UN reparations to Haiti, an end to police profiling and terror in the U.S., and the pull-out of the UN occupation forces deployed in Haiti since 2004.
“There has not yet been a major demonstration in Washington, DC to denounce Trump’s gutting of TPS as a part of his campaign to stop and expel black and brown immigrants from coming to the U.S.,” said unionist and teacher Marie Paule Florestal, one of the key organizers of the May 19 rally. “We are going to fill Lafayette Park and Pennsylvania Avenue with our banners, placards, and voices to tell Trump and the world’s media that his racist policies will no longer be tolerated. Our Haitian ancestors defeated Napoleon Bonaparte when he tried to reestablish slavery in Haiti. Today, we will stop Trump from turning back the clock to the days of Jim Crow, lynchings, and immigrant demonization.”
In November, Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) introduced the American Promise Act of 2017, to allow TPS holders, or those with deferred enforced departure (DED), to apply for permanent residency, if they do so within three years of enactment of the bill.
Read more about TPS on Liberation News.
