UNITE HERE Member, Members of Other Labor and Immigrant Advocacy Organizations Sue Trump Administration to Overturn TPS Terminations
San Francisco, CA – This morning at federal court in San Francisco, a UNITE HERE member from Haiti with Temporary Protective Status (TPS) and eight other TPS holders filed a lawsuit to overturn the Trump administration’s Temporary Protective Status terminations. The UNITE HERE member, Wilna Destin of Orlando, Florida is a Haitian TPS recipient and long time resident of Orlando, Florida, where she owns a home with her husband. She has two daughters, one of whom is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit challenges all four TPS terminations that have occurred under Trump for Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Sudan, on the grounds of violating constitutional rights of the children of TPS holders as well as the Administrative Procedure Act. Under the US Constitution, all American citizens are entitled to due process as well as the long established right to live with their families without unwarranted government interference. The Trump administration’s TPS terminations violate those rights of 200,000 American citizens whose parents are TPS holders from the four terminated countries, including Wilna’s daughter.
“For my daughters, America is all they’ve known,” said Wilna ahead of the court filing. “Without legal intervention to stop the expiration of Haitian TPS, my daughters will be forced to either lose their mother to Trump or to sacrifice their entire lives and educational opportunities to move to an underdeveloped country that cannot absorb a wave of thousands of deportations. I am afraid of becoming a target by standing up to Donald Trump, but my daughter and I chose to do this to save our family.”
“This lawsuit is about who UNITE HERE is as a union, and who America is at its core,” said D. Taylor, International President of UNITE HERE. “We are proud to be a union made up of many immigrant families, and deeply committed to the labor movement as a civil rights vehicle. As Donald Trump and his administration attempt to divide America with his racist policies, it is imperative that labor serve as the moral conscience of this country and challenge the illegal and immoral policies that would destroy working families.”
UNITE HERE has fought to block TPS terminations throughout the Trump administration, including flying members with TPS and their families in to DC for federal lobby days numerous times in the past year, blitzing home districts of swing state federal delegations with local workers, and making international headlines with a Thanksgiving protest of Haitian TPS expirations at Mar-A-Lago with hundreds of Central Florida UNITE HERE immigrant workers. UNITE HERE represents thousands of TPS holders who have worked in the hospitality industry for decades, have American born children, and serve their country and community through their union activism and leadership in their local communities and excellence in our industry.
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UNITE HERE represents 270,000 members working in the hotel, gaming, food service, manufacturing, textile, distribution, laundry, transportation, and airport industries in the U.S. and Canada. Learn more at www.unitehereimmigration.org