Pledges Continued TPS Advocacy

New York, NY – The announcement today that the Department of Homeland Security plans to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) will create a humanitarian crisis for the nearly 200,000 Salvadoran immigrants and their families who have been working and living in America for up to decades. The loss of work authorizations for dedicated and long term employees who are crucial pillars of the hospitality industry will reverberate across our industry, particularly in the economies of places like California, Texas, and Washington, DC that have very significant populations of Salvadoran TPS-status workers.

“Today Trump’s DHS is taking nearly 200,000 law-abiding American immigrants and turning them from legal workers into targets for deportation,” said Maria Elena Durazo, General Vice President of UNITE HERE, a hospitality workers’ union that represents many immigrant workers, including thousands on TPS. “Not only will terminating TPS for 200,000 Salvadorian workers take away their livelihoods and the life they’ve spent decades building here, but it will tear apart hundreds of thousands of families with mixed immigration statuses, including many with American born children.”

UNITE HERE represents Salvadoran TPS recipients across the country.  The union has pledged continued commitment to save TPS, including advocacy at the federal level and through a nearly $1 Million labor campaign called Working Families United as congressional action is now more important than ever. The union is committed to a long-term goal of comprehensive immigration reform for the 11 million undocumented and has a long legacy of being a leading organization for immigrant worker rights within the American labor movement.

### 

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, including many immigrant, DACA, and TPS members. Learn more at www.unitehereimmigration.org