A principios de mayo, la Corte Suprema de Estados Unidos falló a favor de la orden de la administración Trump de terminar el Estatus de Protección Temporal (TPS, en inglés) para los venezolanos.
La administración también decidió revocar el TPS para los afganos en Estados Unidos.
El Estatus de Protección Temporal es una clasificación migratoria que protege a las personas de la deportación y les permite trabajar en Estados Unidos. Las personas de estos países a menudo han experimentado amenazas de conflictos armados, desastres ambientales u otras formas de peligro grave. Al revocar el TPS, la administración Trump declaró que Afganistán y Venezuela son lugares seguros para regresar, una conclusión que contradice la mayoría de los testimonios de las personas dentro de estos países.
La revocación del gobierno implica que tanto 3 mil venezolanos como 3 mil afganos residentes en Minnesota podrían ser deportados. Muchos inmigrantes de estos países afirman temer persecución política si regresan a casa.
El jueves 29 de mayo, Sahan Journal invitó a dos expertas a compartir las experiencias de tanto miembros de la comunidad como clientes que están tratando de navegar el panorama cambiante de la inmigración en los Estados Unidos.
- Nasreen Sajady es directora ejecutiva de la Sociedad Cultural Afgana en Minneapolis.
- Ana Pottratz Acosta es profesora en la Facultad de Derecho Mitchell Hamline en St. Paul.
En una conversación en vivo de más de una hora transmitida por Instagram, Sajady y Pottratz Acosta hablaron sobre la confusa avalancha de órdenes federales y decisiones legales que afectan a los beneficiarios del TPS en Minnesota. También respondieron preguntas de los espectadores. Aquí les presentamos 10 conclusiones de la conversación.
¿Qué es TPS?
El Estatus de Protección Temporal (TPS, en inglés) es un estatus migratorio de corto plazo otorgado a personas de países que experimentan desastres naturales o conflictos civiles. Permite a las personas vivir y trabajar en Estados Unidos y fue autorizado por el Congreso en 1990.
¿Por qué afganos y venezolanos han recibido el estatus TPS?
Tras la caída del gobierno afgano y el resurgimiento de los talibanes en 2021, el gobierno de Biden otorgó TPS a Afganistán. De igual manera, el gobierno de Biden otorgó TPS a los venezolanos tras el agravamiento de la persecución política y las crisis humanitarias bajo el gobierno del presidente Nicolás Maduro.
¿Por qué los afganos en Minnesota tienen miedo de regresar a casa?
Según Nasreen Sajady, los afganos dicen que temen represalias por parte de los talibanes debido a su participación política previa o su historial de ayuda al ejército estadounidense.
¿Por qué los venezolanos en Minnesota no sienten que sea seguro regresar a casa?
Según Ana Pottratz Acosta, los ciudadanos venezolanos en Minnesota temen detenciones y persecución política en Venezuela.
¿Quién en el gobierno de Estados Unidos determinó que Afganistán y Venezuela son seguros para que quienes se han ido de sus países puedan regresar?
Para cancelar el TPS, la Secretaria de Seguridad Nacional debe evaluar si las condiciones son seguras para el retorno. La secretaria Kristi Noem anunció en febrero y principios de mayo que las condiciones eran seguras en Venezuela y Afganistán, una opinión que contradice la información generalizada sobre persecución política en ambos países.
¿Qué pasa con los inmigrantes de Afganistán y Venezuela que han perdido el estatus TPS?
A pesar del término del TPS para venezolanos y afganos, ambos grupos pueden realizar solicitudes de asilo basadas en los peligros políticos que enfrentan en sus países de origen, según Pottratz Acosta.
¿Qué deben hacer los inmigrantes afganos y venezolanos para gestionar su nueva situación?
Mientras la administración Trump intenta agilizar el proceso de deportación, Pottratz Acosta recomienda que quienes hayan tenido TPS lleven consigo prueba de su estatus migratorio en todo momento. Esta medida podría reducir la probabilidad de que sean detenidos injustamente y les otorgaría un mayor poder de acción legal en caso de que eso ocurra.
¿Cómo pueden los inmigrantes manejar el estrés de estos desafíos?
Los afganos con TPS en Minnesota han expresado un creciente temor de regresar a Afganistán, dijo Sajady. Sin embargo, ella ha estado aconsejando a sus clientes que se concentren en intentar construir una nueva vida en Estados Unidos. Señala que su organización sin fines de lucro, la Sociedad Cultural Afgana, se centra en ofrecer comunidad y consuelo a quienes se encuentran en dificultades. Ante el creciente temor, la Sociedad Cultural Afgana continúa organizando eventos con comida y música, brindando un sentido de comunidad a los afganos en Minnesota.
¿Es seguro viajar para los solicitantes de TPS y de asilo?
Pottratz Acosta recomienda que estos grupos de inmigrantes eviten los viajes internacionales debido a los riesgos asociados con el reingreso a Estados Unidos. Con o sin pasaporte, es posible ser detenido por la aduana. Sin embargo, añadió, no debería haber problema con los viajes nacionales.
¿Cuál es la situación de los niños nacidos en Estados Unidos?
Los niños nacidos en EE. UU. son ciudadanos estadounidenses según la Decimocuarta Enmienda de la Constitución. Sin embargo, la Corte Suprema está escuchando activamente los argumentos a favor de una orden ejecutiva que busca eliminar dicha cláusula. Pottratz Acosta sugiere que las familias soliciten un pasaporte estadounidense para sus hijos nacidos en EE. UU. Este proceso podría fortalecer las solicitudes de inmigración de las familias que buscan el TPS o asilo.
* Aviso: Para esta historia, el personal de la redacción de Sahan utilizó inteligencia artificial para transcribir rápidamente el audio de la transmisión en vivo y compilar un resumen de las conclusiones clave. Un reportero y un editor de Sahan tomaron estos materiales de partida para elaborar la lista que aparece arriba. El uso de IA nos permitió adaptar eficientemente nuestra entrevista en vivo a una historia para el sitio web de Sahan.
Puede ver la grabación de la transmisión en vivo y leer la transcripción completa, ambas en inglés, ligeramente editada, a continuación.
Nasreen Sajady: Sure. My name is Nasreen sajadi. I’m the executive director at the Afghan cultural society
Alberto Villafan, Sahan Journal: Thank you so much, and we’re very happy to have here with us. Thank you, Ana.
Ana Pottratz Acosta: Hi, happy to be here. My name is Ana Pottratz Acosta, and I am a professor of law specializing in immigration law at Mitchell Hamlin School of Law in St Paul.
Sahan Journal: Thank you so much for joining us. If you have any questions for our guests today regarding Temporary Protected Status, make sure to drop those into the chat. Please send them into the chat. We’ll be sharing these with our panelists during our hour long conversation today, since or since January, a barrage of presidential orders and a stream of court decisions have created confusion in the US immigration system. This month, the Trump administration terminated Temporary Protected Status, otherwise known as TPS for Afghans. The he terminated those same protections in January for Venezuelans. On I think a lot of people may hear these acronyms like TPS and not really know what they are or even how they work. Can you tell us what exactly Temporary Protected Status, TPS, is?
Pottratz Acosta: Sure. So in brief, Temporary Protected Status is a form of status that was authorized by Congress in 1990 through the Immigration Act of 1990 and with TPS authority It was previously under the INS now the authority lies with the Secretary of Homeland Security. It allows the executive branch to grant temporary status and work permits to nationals of certain countries in that where the country is suffering from either a natural disaster or civil strife. So in the case of both Afghanistan and Venezuela, TPS was granted on account of the country undergoing civil strife or war in Afghanistan.
Of course, we had the the fall of the government and rise of the Taliban taking over with the withdrawal of US troops in this fall of 2021 which led to grant of TPS by President Biden, initially in 2000 in 2021 and then a redesignation in 2023 and then, in the case of Venezuelans, actually President Trump, one of the last acts that he did upon leaving prior to leaving office in 2021 was granting a different status called D, E, D, or deferred enforced departure, to Venezuelans, and then later in March of 2021, President Biden designated Venezuela for TPS, and then redesignated Venezuela for TPS in October or September, October of 2023 and Venezuela, of course, has been living under A dictatorship since the early, I think 1999 or 2000 under initially under Hugo Chavez and now under the Maduro regime, and it was granted in recognition of the civil strife occurring in Venezuela. So
Sahan Journal: Nasreen, over to you. What are the conditions that forced Afghanistan, or, Afghans, to leave Afghanistan?
Sajady: There’s a lot of reasons people leave Afghanistan. I think that the evacuation was so scary for people in 2021 and they were just getting phone calls to leave. And so I think that the way that the evacuation went put even more fear in people to get out as fast as they could because they were in fear that something was about to happen to them. Many people have had to leave because they were trying to build a different type of society that the Taliban was not approve of, which included more freedom for movement, freedom for a lot of the minority groups that are oppressed in this country, and a lot of people have to leave because they supported the US military and fought against the Taliban. And so many people that we talk with have had entire family killed by Taliban, and so if they go back, they’ll likely be killed.
Sahan Journal: We’re seeing, like some of those images when people were first fleeing, there were photos of people like boarding helicopters and in any form of transit, it must have been terrifying.
Sajady: Yeah, when people talk about the way they were evacuated and the time they spent at the camps, it’s you can see in their bodies, the way they get tense and the fear that they had from that experience alone, it was very traumatic for many folks.
Sahan Journal: So the President United States has said, like, it’s safe to return now. But what are you hearing from members, from members of our local community? You know? What are they saying about the conditions in Afghanistan?
Sajady: It’s not safe to return, and they can’t even return because they can’t even travel. What do you even go home? Can’t even return like if they were to get a green card or approval to travel, their attorneys are telling them not to leave the US in case the Muslim ban or the travel ban comes back into effect, that they’ll be trapped somewhere.
Sahan Journal: So essentially, that there’s a they’re being warned that there is a chance that they could be stuck in like Limbo?
Sajady: Yeah.
Sahan Journal: So what would what do they do in this situation? Where do they go?
Sajady: They stay here. They stay stuck here. There’s people who want to reunite with their family members, they want to get married, they want to see their kids. They want to see their parents, and they can’t, they can’t leave.
Sahan Journal: So with the changes to TPS, then you know, what do Afghans in Minnesota tell you they’re experiencing right now?
Sajady: There’s a lot of fear of what all of this means, like with with I think the fear especially comes with the idea that the US is claiming it’s safe when and that the economy has gotten better when more than 23 million people were on aid last year to stay alive. So I don’t know how they were able to magically fix the economy to make sure 23 million people aren’t starving to death all of a sudden, but the situation has not gotten better. Talking with women on the ground that live in Afghanistan, it’s very scary, and the violence trickles down. It goes from Taliban down, and so then family cultural cultures start to change too, and become more restrictive because they’re afraid, and that, like when men speak up even about things, they get beaten. And so it’s very oppressive, very oppressive place.
Sahan Journal: Can you draw any parallels to what Venezuelan immigrants are experiencing in the United States right now?
Pottratz Acosta: Yes. So a lot of the similar things that I’m hearing from my Venezuelan clients that well, and then, just to provide a little bit of context behind the political situation in Venezuela, they actually underwent a presidential election in July of 2024, and the results of the election where Maduro was declared the victor have been highly contested. Leading up to the election, there was a lot of political strife where the leading opposition candidate was banned from running for president.
So after the Maduro was declared the victor in the election in 2024 the situation in Venezuela, if anything, has gotten worse since the last designation of TPS in September of 2023 and a lot of Venezuelans are saying that if they were forced to return, because many Venezuelans who have come to the United States were politically active or political dissidents opposed to the Maduro regime. Very similarly, they fear that they would be arrested immediately upon their arrival. That and many of them prior to leaving Venezuela have experienced political persecution. They’ve been arrested, they’ve been beaten by officials for participating in opposition activities.
One other piece of context, just kind of legally about the TPS program, and sort of what’s required of the Department of Homeland Security when they terminate TPS there actually is a requirement that the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Department of State and other other relevant agencies, that they conduct an assessment of conditions on the ground to evaluate whether or not it is actually safe or that the situation has improved sufficiently for people to return.
And I think in both both the case of Afghanistan and Venezuela, it sort of defies credulity, credulity to say that the situation on the ground has improved sufficiently so that it is now safe for people to return. And that’s one of the things that was raised in the lawsuits challenging the termination of TPS in both Venezuela and Afghanistan.
Sahan Journal: So what you’re telling me is, there, generally speaking, there isn’t, like, an actual metric to determine if a country is safe to return. It’s just a matter of like, well, I said so,
Pottratz Acosta: Yes and no, but there is, but they can’t just declare that it’s safe. They it has to be supported by an evaluation of conditions on the ground. So if you’re saying, yes, it’s safe, but then you have a report where this evaluation has been conducted, and all of the facts in your report contradict that declaration. That is, that’s also something that would be grounds for a legal challenge to the termination.
Sahan Journal: Thank you to everyone joining us just now, if you are, if you’re just joining us now, just now, we are here with an Alberto Acosta, a Mitchell Hamline School of Law professor and Nasreen Sajady, Executive Director of the Afghan cultural society.
We are discussing changes to temporary protected status, otherwise known as TPS, impacting Afghans and Venezuelans in Minnesota. If you want to learn more about this, you can read our recent stories on zahandjournal.com, or you continue listening to this, I was gonna say delightful. This isn’t a delightful.
Thank you so much for joining us just now on a we read a lot about immigration cases going to the court system. You know, in the meanwhile, what are Venezuelans who’ve lost TPS status actually doing to manage their lives in Minnesota?
Pottratz Acosta: Sure, so from in terms of like their legal status, and this is something that is true for people of all nationalities that have fled horrific conditions, including nationals of Afghanistan as well. So really, what lawyers are doing is sort of evaluating the situation that their clients are facing, to evaluate whether or not they’re all there are alternative forms of relief. So for many individuals in Minnesota and around the country who are nationals of Venezuela who held TPS status, often they are also eligible for other forms of relief, particularly asylum.
So just very 10,000 foot level your you can be granted asylum. And this is a standard that was set by the Refugee Convention from 1951 an international treaty where, if you can prove that you are likely to be persecuted or have a well founded fear of persecution on a crown of one of five grounds, your race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group, you are entitled to protection under the law and being granted asylum status.
So because many people who fled Venezuela were political dissidents or did belong to an opposition party or had family members who belonged to an opposition party, that would be grounds for asylum. Similarly for Afghanistan, if somebody assisted the US military. Or if you were a woman who supported equal rights for women in Afghanistan or a number of other grounds, you also could have a colorable asylum claim and could pursue asylum as an alternative form of relief if your temporary protected status is revoked. I have
Sahan Journal: One more question for you, Ana, and then we’re going to move over to Nasreen. Many community members from Venezuela and Afghanistan have told Sahan reporters that they’re fearful that deportations might be the next step. Something is coming. Could this genuinely happen you know, if they’re on a protected status?
Pottratz Acosta: Yes, absolutely. And what we’re actually seeing around the country is that a lot of times when with somebody’s immigration case, there are many moving parts happening. So for Venezuelan nationals in particular, many of them were admitted or paroled into the country at the board at the southern border, and they have a pending case before immigration court.
And what’s happening, what we’ve seen recently is that when people appear for their immigration case, the government will move to terminate proceedings or close out their immigration case, and then, if they had a pending asylum application before the immigration court because of a jurisdictional issue, if your case is closed, you then need to refile your asylum case with USCIS, a sub agency that’s part of the Department of Homeland Security. But immediately after your hearing, an ice agent will be waiting outside of the courtroom to arrest you and put you into an expedited removal proceeding. This would be applicable to a category of people who’ve been here for less than two years.
So it would apply more to the people who are granted TPS under the July where you had to be present by July of 2023, so a lot of people are very fearful of going to their court hearings, as well as kind of being in this legal limbo where they don’t no longer have protection under TPS, and maybe haven’t, or they have a pending asylum application, but don’t know how to show that, so that they can show that they have a right to be in the country. So it’s it’s a very precarious situation for a lot of people.
Sahan Journal: Sounds more than confusing to say the least. Yeah, sorry, Nasreen, I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of concerns about the potential deportation as well, right? Are you able to give us some examples of what? I guess some people are telling you something that you’ve been hearing within your own community.
Sajady: I think everybody just has so many questions, like, she’s an attorney, and she’s telling us how complicated it is, and her whole job is to navigate this and understand it. So people have so many questions, and there’s a lot of fear, and like the fear of ice coming and hunting people and the fear of ice on campus in the University of Minnesota actually working with ice, which is making us want to discourage our community from attending the school, because it’s not safe anymore. It wasn’t maybe safe before, but it’s especially not safe now. So I feel like there is fear of deportation, but we are doing our best to keep the community calm, because putting them in a state of fear paralyzes them, and they need to be able to figure out how to build a life here still. And so we are doing our best as leaders in the community to keep the community calm and let them know that there are people who are fighting for them.
Sahan Journal: You put air quotes around “leaders.” Can I ask why?
Sajady: I don’t like the term? I just feel like we all bring a resource to a community, and we all specialize in different things, and so I’m not a fan of leaders.
Sahan Journal: We’re “comrades.”
Sajady: Comrades. Comrades is a good word.
Pottratz Acosta: Well, and I would say too that it sort of takes away the individual agency of individual of people. So my job, or, like, how I view my job as a lawyer is that I help people make an informed decision. So, like, I can explain the law and sort of explain what your options are, but ultimately, it’s your choice how you want to proceed, similarly with a lot of the fear, I think, empowering people with knowledge on what your rights are, what you can do if you’re in a situation where you’re stopped in the street by ICE, if ice comes to your home, that’s really important, because by empowering people with knowledge, they’re able to take agency over their own lives, and it addresses that fear that you mentioned, because we’re I’m seeing it in the Venezuelan community and all immigrant communities here in Minnesota that that fear paralyzes you. You’re afraid to leave your house and take your kids to school. But by having that knowledge, it’s it demystifies it and empowers people to be less afraid and understand that you have to continue your life.
Sahan Journal: So I guess what, what are, what are people telling you guys they’re going to do right now? You know, like, despite all of this change, like, despite all of this fear that is mounting within the Afghan community and the Venezuelan community, what are people telling you they’re going to do? I know that’s a little vague.
Sajady: I mean, do about what I guess like.
Sahan Journal: Are they going to stand or stand fast? Are they going to just wait it out see if they may avoid deportation? Are they looking on ways to just return to avoid, just
Sajady: People are trying to build their lives here. They’re still continuing to try to build their lives here.
Sahan Journal: What does that look like, despite changes to TPS,
Sajady: A lot more anxiety.
I think that there is a level. There is this new tension that you can feel in the community, and a new level of fear that exists every time the community gets attacked, or anytime any community gets attacked, because we know when one community gets attacked, the next community gets attacked, whatever they get away with in one community trickles down to the rest of us, and so we pay close. Attention to that and talk about that in our meetings, and it’s very tense right now, and we’ve actually been requested by other community members and different at different organizations to continue organizing joyful events so we can still come together, and so we have solidarity amongst all of us, and that we have joy still during this time. What
Sahan Journal: Do these joyful events look like?
Sajady: I think everything we do, I call a party. So it depends. Sometimes we have programs that have psycho education paired with it, or sometimes we have an Eid event, or we’ll have a women’s event, or, I don’t know, it usually includes some food and some dancing and some laughing and some henna and some kids running around. And, yeah, it’s pretty beautiful. People dress up and look beautiful, and everybody’s glamorous. So grateful that this glamorous community showed up in Minneapolis because we needed some glam.
Sahan Journal: I can see that that sounds warm, I guess is the good word I want. I’ve got a question from Julie in the chat. Give me one second. All right? From Julie, she asks, Do Afghans with green cards or approved asylum have reason to be fearful? No, if they have these legal documents that say they’re allowed to be here? Should they still be cautious? I guess either of you can answer.
Sajady: I would let ask you to answer first, and then maybe I can give
Pottratz Acosta: I would say that someone who either has asylum status or permanent residence. That is a much safer form of status, relative sort of in the hierarchy of the forms of status that you can hold in the respect that it is a permanent form of status that allows you to stay live work in the United States indefinitely.
That said, there are some risks, particularly with regard to travel, as was mentioned previously. So any time that you leave the United States and then you come back and come through customs, you do, you’re essentially like knocking on the door and applying for readmission to come in. So if there’s any sort of issue in your background, you are potentially at risk of running into trouble when you come back in. So the advice that we’re giving people, even if they hold permanent resident status or asylum status, is to be cautious about international travel.
The other thing too is that if you have asylum status or refugee status, or if you were granted permanent residence or a green card based on a grant of asylum or refugee status, if you travel internationally, it’s important that you apply for something called a refugee travel document, because by being granted asylum, effect, effectively, you’re saying that you face harm or persecution from your home government. So you need a refugee travel document, because if you have a passport from the country that person like you’re seeking assistance or a passport from the government that persecuted you, that could be grounds to revoke either your asylee or refugee status or permanent residence on that basis. So I just want to make sure I give that piece of advice to people listening.
Sajady: I think the other thing too that is fearful is the idea that they have to have the original documents on them at all time, or it’s illegal and they can get arrested for this. That’s absolute madness. We’ve had people whose stuff has been stolen and it took months to get them back, and that was before all these cuts, and so it’s illegal for them to even exist or travel outside of their home if they don’t have their documents.
Sahan Journal: So what do they do in a situation like that, where they’re just where they were stolen from?
Sajady: We had to try to know, like we’ve had to try to find replacement documents for them. But this is, this is new, right? This is a new Yes,
Pottratz Acosta: Yes. So there, so it’s sort of two things. So technically, speaking, there on the books, there has been a law that if you have a work permit, or you have permanent resident status that you’re required to carry those documents on your person at all times, it hasn’t really been enforced as aggressively.
But the bigger issue, and this kind of goes to the ramped up enforcement environment that we find ourselves in, is that the Department of Homeland Security, or the Trump Administration, has expanded something called expedited removal, which allows them to do a fast track deportation process of anybody who has been present for less than two years within the entire interior of the United States prior to January of this year, when expedited removal. Was expanded. It only applied to people who were apprehended within the 100 mile perimeter around the borders, the border zone, who had been here for less than 14 days.
And because of the expansion of expedited removal, we’re advising people to carry proof of their status on their person at all times, or at least proof that they’ve been physically present in the US for two years just to be safe so that they’re not swept up in this expedited removal process. Because if you don’t have proof that you’ve been here for at least two years or hold lawful status, then it the system moves very, very quickly, and you can be swept up in this deportation machine before you even know what’s happened.
Sahan Journal: Looks like I have a another audience question from Zainab, I believe is the name they ask. Is traveling safe for asylum seekers right now?
Pottratz Acosta: Domestically? Well, I guess it depends. So domestic travel is probably fine as long as you have a doc, like a driver’s license or a document that is REAL ID compliant, that’s another change that’s happened. Is Real ID is in effect when you travel on an airplane, international travel, I would not, yeah, do not travel internationally while your case is pending, okay?
Sahan Journal: Oh, that gives you some clarification. You’re fine if you’re road tripping to California, for example?
Pottratz Acosta: Yes. Carry your documents on your person in case, of course, have a checkpoint, yeah, something.
Sahan Journal: Thank you for joining us. My name is Alberto Villafan With Sahan journal. We’re experiencing a little technical difficulty over here. I’m here with Ana potrats Acosta from Mitchell Hamlin law and Nasreen sajari from the Afghan Cultural Society. We’re talking about changes to humanitarian patrol or parole. I’m dyslexic. I never learned how to read and how changes to humanitarian parole and how that impacts immigration and immigrants in Minnesota, remember to keep asking us questions in the chat. More details are always welcome, by the way. That way I don’t have to interpret what you’re asking me. We’re going to move on with one of the questions that I have while we sort this little bit out. Anna, are there any recent changes to humanitarian parole in the United States right now? Oh, just a few. Just a few. Yeah.
Pottratz Acosta: Oh, God, I don’t even know where to start.
Sajady: Okay, all right, I feel like we need a couple hours for that question.
Pottratz Acosta: Yeah, okay, so wanting to go with it, yeah? Just like, have it on tap. Like, keep it coming anyway. Okay, so humanitarian parole, so just kind of like, by way of background, humanitarian parole is an authority that is granted to the President and the executive branch that allows the president to admit people on a humanitarian basis. It’s a form of status that has been granted or an authority that’s been used by every president dating back to, I believe, either the Truman administration or the Eisenhower administration. It was initially used to admit people who were fleeing post war Europe and communist and communist countries during the Cold War, all the way up until recently, with the Biden administration humanitarian parole. Historically, in addition to the evacuation out of Afghanistan, which there was a very large evacuation out of the Vietnam, out of Vietnam after the end of the Vietnam War, where, similarly, approximately 80,000 people were evacuated from Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. They were all admitted to the United States with humanitarian parole. So I want to give that historical context to so that people understand that this is an authority that has existed under the law going back 70 or 80 years that’s been used by every president, including President Trump. So going back to like more recent developments, one I as an immigration lawyer and someone who advocates for Responsible immigration. Laws that benefit immigrant communities. I have plenty of criticisms of the Biden administration and how they have handled, how they handled immigration policy, but one thing that I will say to their credit is that they did introduce a number of lawful pathways for people to come to the United States on a humanitarian basis, and a lot of those lawful pathways were through humanitarian parole. So one of the programs was a program at the border where using a smartphone app called the CBP one app, where people could apply for an appointment and then they would be paroled in for two years at the border in order to pursue an asylum claim. So there were a number of there were 1000s of people that were paroled through CBP one, number two, there were parole programs for nationals of particular countries. So the the three program main programs were for Afghan nationals. So people who were evacuated were all granted humanitarian parole. There was another program that was a little bit less successful in its administration, kind of putting it mildly, to sponsor people for humanitarian parole out who were Afghan nationals after the evacuation. There also was a program uniting for Ukraine, where family where, like a family member or a church or other organizations could sponsor somebody fleeing the war in Ukraine to come to the United States. I think 10s of 1000s of people were admitted through that program. And then finally, there was the CH and V parole program, which was for nationals of Cuba Haiti Nicaragua and Venezuela. And under that parole program, a family member or friend could sponsor you to come to the US, and you would be granted humanitarian parole. So all of those humanitarian parole programs, the Afghan parole program, uniting for Ukraine, chnv, parole, CBP one, app, appointments and parole, those programs were all terminated. It was a day one policy of the Trump administration. And then for people who are present in the US with humanitarian parole, there’s also been an effort to terminate grants of humanitarian parole for people who are already present in the United States. So for nationals of Afghanistan and Ukraine, after they were granted humanitarian parole, their President Biden did allow them to apply for re parole to get an additional two years of status. There have been some efforts to end that process, and I know that a lot of reparol applications are currently stuck at USCIS, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the sub agency of Department of Homeland Security that processes applications for relief and then for chnb parole, they actually tried to terminate it early, so you would lose your parole status. And then same for CBP one. And people received a very scary email saying your parole is terminated effective immediately. You need to depart the United States immediately, or you will suffer grave consequences and get if you, as you can imagine, getting an email like that is very, very scary for people, so we got a lot of panicked phone calls and texts after that went out. So thank you very much. Homeland Security,
Nasreen Sajady
Nasreen, put us in fear to paralyze us right, right?
Sahan Journal:
What’s the benefit of having that confusion? Nasreen, I having just received that wonderful info dump, I appreciate it.
Sajady: No, do not apologize, that was a really good summary of everything. I was like, Wow. Who did it? How
Sahan Journal:
would you how do you keep people informed on what information they need to know? Like, how do you sift through or how do you get people to understand and understand what they need to know in this process?
Sajady: Right now, we have a lot of conversations. We my team is really amazing, so we discuss things very openly during our staff meeting. There’s nothing that is too sensitive to share honestly with the team, and so we discuss amongst the team how we want to communicate things, what tone we want to communicate, what’s the best way to communicate. And we have, we use our social media. We use we have a partnership with Sahan, and we have a newsletter, and we have a radio show as well with kfai. And so we use all of these things to try to communicate anything we can so people know their rights, and not just the Know Your Rights campaign that we’re pushing, so people know what to do in case ice stops them, but other other way, other information that they would need to know to keep themselves safe. And so we trans. Everything. We have it written. And then we also have people do voice recordings too, because some people can’t read and write in their mother tongue, and so I don’t know we we do our best, but it’s a lot. It’s a lot. We have a communications person, Gabe, who’s amazing and does really great work for us, to make sure our team knows, our community knows, is up to date on how to protect themselves.
Sahan Journal:
Sounds like more than a lot. It’s putting it lightly. If you ask me.
Sajady: It’s pretty exhausting, like we’re all like, you have to just navigate the legal part. That’s like, one portion we have to navigate housing, health care, mental health, education, and then the interpersonal stuff that happens amongst families or community, and then trying to build an org and keep an org going like we’re tired
Sahan Journal:
real quick before I get to an audience question, how often? How long are your work days? I guess, for your staff and you,
Sajady: My staff has a much more flexible life than I. So they It depends, it depends on what service they’re providing. The people who navigate social services, they tend to work all the time, all on the lot because they get a call, have to go to the hospital in the middle of night because there’s no one available to trans one available to translate, or they’re afraid and they don’t trust whoever’s coming or whatever. So they’ll call us, or for me, it’s like mice. I work every day, all the time, day and night never ends. It never ends. And I’m always talking about it. And I’m in love with Afghanistan and Afghan people, so I’m always talking about it and so that just, it’s not really just, it’s not really work. It’s my heart, you know.
Sahan Journal: I’ve got three questions. The first one I’m gonna ask is from worthy words. I’m hoping I’m pronouncing that right. It sounds like, you know who this person is? Yeah. First up, I’m going to ask from worthy words is, what’s the difference between humanitarian parole and temporary protected status? Levana, that’s for you
Pottratz Acosta: Sure. So humanitarian parole is generally granted when you are coming into the country. So it’s something that’s granted you either get approval of a petition or an application to be sponsored for humanitarian parole to come in, or you’re granted humanitarian parole at the time that you’re processed at the border or processed through customs. Temporary Protected Status. On the other hand, it is a form of status for people who are present in the United States as of the day that TPS is designated by the president or the department the Secretary of Homeland Security, technically so it’s for many people. They may have been undocumented or have had their status expire, and then they’re allowed to apply for TPS after as long as they’re present on the day that TPS is designated, okay?
Sahan Journal: Then, regarding TPS also from, I believe this question is also from worthy words. If I’m wrong, let me know in the chat. Could you also remind us on what is happening to TPS in Afghanistan and Venezuela. TPS two. Give me one second. There’s a lot of words in my head right now. Can you remind us what is happening with TPS regarding Afghans and Venezuelans in Minnesota? It got through. It eventually.
Pottratz Acosta: Okay, so this is both in Minnesota and nationally. So there was actually a decision by the Supreme Court last week in the legal challenge, challenging the termination of TPS for nationals of Venezuela, and this likely will have an impact on efforts to terminate TPS for other nationals of other countries, including Afghanistan. So the Supreme Court issued a ruling that reversed an injunction by a lower court and allowed the Trump administration to proceed with terminating TPS for nationals of Venezuela. And it’s sort of the purpose of having those lower court injunctions is to ensure that there isn’t harm to impacted members of the class or impacted members of the community that are that are that would be impacted by the lawsuit. So it was quite surprising, I would have to say, considering the strength of the legal challenge, particularly in the case of Venezuela, because you had sort of a concurrent analysis, because there was a redesignation of TPS for Venezuela. That was one of the last acts of the Biden administration before and Secretary Mayorkas before leaving office, and then Secretary Nome opted to term. Eight reverse that decision and then later terminate TPS, so you have a concurrent analysis of conditions on the ground. So there was and there were, there have also been, like a lot of extemporaneous comments by Secretary Nome that show an animus toward nationals of Venezuela that made this legal challenge particularly strong, which was why the decision by the Supreme Court was quite surprising, but the practically speaking, TPS is going to be allowed to be terminated, so people with TPS will lose their status.
Sahan Journal: Okay, I’ve got one more from the audience questions. This one is from Zainab. I called you Zane, earlier, and I’m going to apologize for that. Your name is Zainab. You’re asking, Could you Could you please explain if newborns in the US are considered US citizens at birth, even if parents are undocumented or are asylum seekers? I know we are constantly hearing New headlines about threats to birthright citizenship, that’s still a thing, right?
Pottratz Acosta: Yes, so the Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments on the executive order to amend the Constitution, which I’m just going to no comment, but at the there is quite a bit of case law dating back to the Wong Kim Ark decision from 1892 that has found that children of immigrants do are subject To the birthright citizenship clause. So the clause reads, any person born in the United States subject to the jurisdiction and thereof is a citizen. So to me, it’s very clear and and the current the way that the law currently stands, any child born in the United States is a citizen at birth, full stop.
Sahan Journal: And can you remind me when we may be hearing or when the Supreme Court will be hearing this case. Do you know?
Pottratz Acosta: Yeah, I don’t know off the top of my head, I think oral arguments are have are either have already taken place or will be taking place soon. I need to just look it up very quickly.
Sahan Journal: No worries. Thank you so much. Nasreen, regarding family, do you know any families who do have children that were born in the United States?
Sajady: But yet, so many. There’s so many new babies. What
Sahan Journal: Are those families telling you? I mean…
Sajady: They’re not… They’re. There’ve been questions. The same question has been asked, like, what happens? What does this mean, especially about the birthright citizenship? But we don’t have those answers. I don’t know what those answers are, and we clearly are waiting still to see what will happen. But they’re cute. They call them. They’re American babies, or new Americans. Very cute. New Americans.
Pottratz Acosta: Yes, I would say one piece of advice to anyone who has a young child or a newborn who was born in the United States, apply for their passport as soon as you can, because if you, if the Department of State has recognized you’re a citizen and granted you, or like issued a passport to you, you have a stronger claim that you are a citizen. So my advice is for everyone who has a young child, make an appointment and apply for a passport as soon as possible.
Sahan Journal: You also do that by going online. Yeah, you can also do that by going online. If you’re in Minnesota, you’re able to reserve time to go to the passport centers. I usually go to the one in Roseville. Usually they’re very speedy.
Pottratz Acosta: That was my advice. Yeah, I was gonna say there’s a passport center at the University of Minnesota. I know we’ve thrown shade at the U, but—
Sajady: They’ve been throwing shade at all of us.
Pottratz Acosta: Who knows? Well, yeah, I’m gonna go work there next year, so I need to be very careful.
So but I there is, like a passport processing center on campus at the University of Minnesota, and I’ve taken my own kids there to apply for passport, and it’s very easy to make an appointment. So that’s another option as well, to apply for a passport.
Alberto Villafan
Looks like we’ve got another question from a worthy words, are we able to take any actions to protect birthright citizenship? At this point, anything that we can do?
Pottratz Acosta: I don’t know if there is. I think right now, the quest that question is board before the Supreme Court, and it’s one of those unfortunate things where it’s somewhat out of our hands. The only thing I would recommend, as I said before, is if you are a citizen by virtue of being born in the United States, it’s a. Very good idea to apply for a passport so you have a current passport in hand.
Sahan Journal: Okay, I have a comment from Dana Day Lewis. I’m sure that’s related to the wonderful actor. Seems like oral arguments happened may 15 in bird, right? Citizenship case Trump versus casa. More information is available online. Thank you for adding that information.
Pottratz Acosta: I was just looking it up.
Sahan Journal: I’m just going to remind everyone, if you are just now joining us, thank you so much for listening to our Sahan live this afternoon. Again, we’re here with Anna patratz Acosta, a Mitchell Hamlin School of Law professor, and Nasreen sajadi, an executive the executive director of the Afghan cultural society. If you have questions for either of our wonderful panelists today regarding a temporary protected status and humanitarian parole, please feel free to drop those into the chat. As you can see, we are trying our best to answer them to the best of all, all of our abilities. Anna. Anna, I’m sorry, it’s okay. Um, one challenging thing about following all this news, all this overflow of information about the current immigration situation is that migrants here may be trying to use different immigration statuses. Um, I lost my train of thought. Can tell us? Could you walk me through real quickly, like how humanitarian parole works?
Pottratz Acosta:
Sure. So, as was mentioned before, and this is true of the more recent forms of humanitarian parole, usually you’re granted humanitarian parole upon your entry into the United States. And under the recent programs, the way that you would be granted humanitarian parole would be through, usually through sponsorship from an organization or a family member or church, so on and so forth. And then you’re allowed to come into the United States, and you’re granted humanitarian parole for a period of two years. Additionally, there was the CBP one app parole process, where you were grant process, underwent initial processing at the border and then were paroled in for two years.
Sahan Journal: Okay, thank you so much. I found my place on what I wanted to ask. Now, my bad. So when we were talking about deportations, what does this process typically look like?
Pottratz Acosta: Sure, so when a person is undergoing deportation, and the legal term is actually removal proceedings. So if you have been placed in removal proceedings, you are entitled to a full hearing before an immigration judge. And if you have any forms of relief that would allow you to stay in the United States, you can present an application for relief, be it asylum or if you’re eligible for permanent resident status, you present that before the judge as a defense to your removal. And if the immigration judge, after hearing or reviewing the application and reviewing the evidence, hearing your testimony, grants you asylum, then you’re allowed to stay in the country. If not, then you would receive a removal order. That process takes a lot of time. There’s a lot of news about the historic backlogs in our immigration courts, but it is important in order to ensure that people receive procedural due process, that they have the right to undergo a hearing before a judge before they’re removed. Now,
Sahan Journal: Nasreen do you help clients? Is client the right word?
Sajady: It depends on what, who I’m talking to, but that’s okay.
Sahan Journal: I’m going to use the word client, just because it’s easiest, I guess. How do you prepare clients for possible deportation hearings or immigration hearings at all?
Sajady: We haven’t had to deal with that, luckily yet, at least in Minnesota, not yet.
Sahan Journal: That’s actually some pretty good relief.
Sajady: We’re lucky. We’ve had pretty amazing attorneys support this community volunteer, The Advocates for Human Rights did so much work for our community and continue to so we’re really lucky that they were so organized, and people are like, on top of their stuff here—
Sahan Journal: Can I ask what they did to help you guys.
Sajady: They rallied all these immigration attorneys to volunteer their time to help fill out all this paperwork. And that was, I didn’t see anything like that anywhere else in the country like the response in Minnesota was so organized—
Sahan Journal: And this was through the Advocates for Human Rights? Thank you. I guess I have another question from the chat. People are wondering, you know, are we able to donate to the Afghan cultural society to help them with the new babies that get their passports ASAP? Cute.
Sajady: Yes, you can. You can go to our website@afghanculturalsociety.org, and you can donate there. Yeah,
Sahan Journal: Thank you so much. I want we’re reaching the end of our broadcast. We’ve got about 10 minutes left in our conversation, and I kind of want to end it on a bit more of a positive note. What have you been doing? Like, how? What has the Afghan Cultural Society been hosting recently?
Sajady: Well, we just had our an Eid party a month ago or so, and we’re about to have our next Eid party, and hopefully it’ll be in Powderhorn Park. We’re waiting for the permit to be approved, but we’re hoping to have kebabs on the water and music and dancing and just time to be in the sunshine and have joy together.
Sahan Journal:Are non Afghan community members able to attend so that they can show support.
Sajady: You can come volunteer with us. The grant specifies that it has to be for Afghans, but you are welcome to volunteer with us, or table if you’d like. If anyone wants to table to provide service to the community, you can email us at info@afghanculturalsociety.org,
Sahan Journal: Thank you. I’ve got another question from the chat from Zainab, can ice deport immigrants before their court hearings? Anna, I think that’s for you.
Pottratz Acosta: So the short answer is yes or maybe, and that has to do with the expansion of expedited removal. So the law has been changed so that if a person is has only been present for less than two years, they can be put in this fast track deportation process called expedited removal. However, a defense to expedited removal is if you have fear of persecution or fear of return in your home country, and you would be entitled to something called a credible fear interview. The other wrinkle in this is, has been the invocation of the something called the alien enemies act by President Trump or the Trump administration, and that was actually what was used to remove the 300 or so men, most of them being Venezuelan nationals, prominently kilmara Garcia to secate in El Salvador. They were all removed under the alien enemies act. However, the Supreme Court has made very clear that prior to removal, under the alien enemies act, individuals are entitled to a habeas hearing where they would be able to assert that their life or their safety would be at risk if they were deported to another country.
Sahan Journal: Nasreen, I want to ask you, you know, how is the African cultural society supporting those who have been impacted by temporary to protect status being terminated, or that are facing these possible deportations?
Sajady: We, like I said earlier about advocates, we’ve been very lucky that everybody that we know of has applied for asylum in the state of Minnesota, and so now people are just in limbo, waiting to hear back ultimately. And there’s this level of fear right now that if they’re claiming that it’s safe, will they still get asylum, because now they’re claiming that the conditions are good enough to go back to so there is fear that they might get their asylum denied.
Sahan Journal: What advice do you have for people who are, you know, being anxious, that are facing these fears right now?
Sajady: I don’t know. I don’t it’s not my life. They teach me every day how to be resilient and keep moving and smile and have joy and I take their lead. What do you mean? Take their the community’s lead. It’s there. They’re the ones impacted. I’m just here to serve them, and so however they want me to lead and move is how I go.
Sahan Journal: I’ve got another question from the chat. This is from Kent cycle. Apparently, Kent cycle’s girlfriend came into the United States from Nicaragua with humanitarian parole. If they were to get married, would she be able to adjust her status? I shouldn’t have hit the mic.
Pottratz Acosta: Okay, so, disclaimer, lawyer, disclaimer that I don’t want to give legal advice over the this podcast or our live stream, my advice would be to speak with an immigration lawyer about the specifics of the case. I will say that generally speaking, if a person has lawfully entered the country, either with a visa or parole. So the requirement under the law is you are admitted and admitted or paroled and inspected that would allow you to go through the process of applying for permanent residence based on marriage or. Relationship to some someone called an immediate relative inside of the United States. So generally speaking, there may be a path, but I don’t want to give advice on a specific situation, and it’s important that you consult with an immigration lawyer.
Sahan Journal: Okay? Kent is telling me that they have spoken to an immigration lawyer. They have been advised get married. Simple and short. I’ve got another question from looks like Julie this time. Any word on refuge, on people in refugee camps that are hoping to come to the US? I assume we’re talking about from Afghanistan.
Sajady: I think everything is on hold right now. Yeah.
Pottratz Acosta: So, yeah, I would agree the one of the other sort of day, one policies of the Trump administration and President Trump was to suspend the refugee resettlement program, so refugees from Afghanistan and then from other countries around the world that have been waiting final approval of their refugee case, though it’s on hold, and I anticipated with the processing or admission under the refugee resettlement program is going to be on hold indefinitely.
Sahan Journal: Okay, so with the Trump administration ending TPS and threatening to end other humanitarian parole protections and programs. You know, do people still have a legal pathway to citizenship right now?
Pottratz Acosta: I would it’s very individual. So every case is different. However, particularly for nationals of Venezuela and Afghanistan, I would say most of them have a colorable asylum claim, and if they have not already done so, it would they would be best served by consulting with an immigration lawyer and evaluating whether or not they could apply for asylum as a way to stay in the country.
Sahan Journal: I’ve got one more question. Then we’re gonna have to wrap up our wonderful little show,
I guess, in the first place. What does applying for asylum? What do applying for these processes look like? Are you guys able to walk me through this process? Real quick? Real quick is obviously not, yeah, yeah.
Sajady: Okay.
Pottratz Acosta: So there are two ways to apply for asylum. If you are in if you have an active case in immigration court, you have to file your application with the immigration court. And then if you’re not in removal proceedings, so that that was the case for a lot of nationals of Afghanistan who were came in after the evacuation with humanitarian parole, you apply affirmatively with USCIS in both defensive asylum and affirmative asylum, what you need to do is file an application called the I 589 asylum application, and you provide biographic data as well as a brief summary of why you are afraid to return to your country of origin, another thing that is very important tip is that there is a rule that you have to apply for asylum within one year of arriving in the United States. There are some exceptions to that one year rule, but if you have been present in the United States for less than a year. It is very important that you have you file your asylum application within one year of arriving in the United States.
Sahan Journal: All right, we’ve reached the end of our broadcast. Nasreen, I’m going to give you one last chance. Is there anything you would like to add that we didn’t get to ask you today?
Sajady: I think I don’t want people to figure out the Afghan people, especially the situation that’s happening with the women and the minority groups there. It is a really unsafe space. And if the US is claiming that what is happening there is safe, the whole rest of the world should be afraid of what is to come.
Sahan Journal: Anna, is there anything you’d like to leave with our listeners before we log off–especially since most of the information I provided has been very gloom and doom
Pottratz Acosta: So I’ve been an immigration lawyer for a little over 20 years, and one I want to kind of leave with a message of hope or resilience. And what I have to say is that something that has always struck me about the immigrant community is that they’re survivors, and they’re very resilient. And I feel discouraged and frustrated, especially right now, with everything being thrown at us, but I look to my clients and look to the community to get strength, and that and that really is what keeps me going. And I think even though the immigrant community in the United States is under attack right now, they’re a very resilient community, and it’s important to embrace. Resilience and joy, and just continue to live your life, not live in fear.
Sahan Journal: Thank you so much. Thank you both so much for joining us, and thank you everyone for tuning into our broadcast today. One last thank you to our fantastic guests, Anna potratska, Costa, a Mitchell Hamlin School of Law professor, and Nasreen sajari, the Executive Director of the Afghan Cultural Society. We’re gonna have a recap article and video of our conversation available for you all later, in case you came in early, case you came in late, or you want to find specific moments that you want to listen to again. Thank you so much for joining us again. My name is Alberto Villafan. You can always stay up to date with the latest news about immigration, other topics impacting immigrants and communities of color in minnesota@zahanjournal.com. Take care. Everyone. Have a wonderful day.
