Florida members of Congress urge Biden administration to redesignate TPS for Nicaragua

Members of Florida’s congressional delegation wrote a bipartisan letter asking the federal government to redesignate and extend Temporary Protected Status for Nicaragua, the latest push in a full-blast campaign in South Florida led by local activists and officials advocating for the change in policy.

“The increasingly totalitarian nature of the Ortega-Murillo regime and the brutal political repression Nicaraguans face in their daily lives exacerbate the urgent need for the Biden Administration to redesignate and extend TPS to Nicaragua,” reads the three-page letter sent Thursday to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Mayorkas is Biden’s top immigration official. He has the executive authority to bestow the temporary immigration protections to people from countries in turmoil who are already living in the United States. TPS shields them from deportation and allows them to live and work in the U.S.

Nicaraguan nationals first received Temporary Protected Status in January 1999 in response to the damage and deaths Hurricane Mitch caused in Central America. There were 4,250 TPS recipients from Nicaragua in 2021, according to a congressional report. Only Nicaraguans who have had a continuous physical presence since the designation date the Clinton administration put in place 24 years ago are eligible for the program.

The federal lawmakers argue in the letter that a new later eligibility cutoff date would protect tens of thousands of undocumented Nicaraguans who are already living in the United States and at risk of deportation. Customs and Border Protection registered nearly 164,000 encounters with Nicaraguan nationals during fiscal year 2022, up from about 50,000 in 2021, according to government data.

The letter focuses on Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s political crackdown on dissenters, clergy and students. It mentions the government’s recent release of over 200 political prisoners, whom the American government relocated through a new humanitarian parole program, as well the court system’s sentencing of a bishop to 26 years in prison after he refused to leave with the rest of the group.

Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who represents a swath of Palm Beach and Broward counties, led the initiative, along with Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas. Several other Florida lawmakers signed, including Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar, Frederica Wilson, Maxwell Frost, Darren Soto and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, as did several other representatives from California, Texas, Illinois, Michigan and Nevada.

South Florida activists and officials have held press conferences and roundtables, written letters and penned postcards over the last year calling for a redesignation of TPS for the Central American nation.

Charlie Crist, a former Florida governor and member of Congress, led another bipartisan congressional correspondence last July. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who sent a letter of her own in September, doubled down last week at a press conference with some of the recently released political prisoners. Hundreds of human rights, faith-based and immigration advocacy groups also sent another letter to the White House asking for the measure.

Thursday’s letter comes days after advocates held a press conference outside of Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s office in Miramar, where many undocumented Nicaraguans periodically check in with immigration authorities. A crowd of about two dozen people held up a large Nicaraguan flag and posters, and chanted in support of TPS redesignation.

The lawmakers also told Mayorkas in their letter that it would be an “unconscionable reality” for the recipients under the 1999 designation to lose their status because of pending Trump-era litigation in which the previous administration moved to terminate Nicaragua and others countries’ TPS. Recipients from several countries sued the federal government over the decision. Advocates and officials hope a new redesignation would protect recipients despite future legal decisions in the lawsuits.

“The possibility of Nicaraguans having to return to their homelands will have catastrophic effects on their families, livelihoods, and well-being,” reads the most recent letter from federal lawmakers.

You can read the letter here.

This story was originally published February 24, 2023 at 4:11 PM.