Guatemala: too risky to return
By Nathaniel Hoffman
Knight Ridder
Katarino Abraham Juarez knows that his nephew, Aquilino, survived Hurricane Stan, but lost his crops and his home to the floods.
When the hurricane hit the Mayan highlands of Guatemala on Oct. 4, Juarez was thousands of miles away in Oakland, where he is a day laborer among thousands of other Guatemalan migrants.
Their government has asked the Bush administration to allow Guatemalans in the United States to stay as their country continues to dig out from the mudslides and floods that destroyed dozens of rural towns and roads.
Protective status
The Guatemalans are seeking temporary protective status, or TPS, an administrative measure that grants temporary work permits to certain foreign nationals, including undocumented immigrants, when the United States deems it too dangerous for them to return home.
"They should give my paisanos, my countrymen, the opportunity to be legal and find work with companies," Juarez said in Spanish, pointing to more than 20 young Guatemalan immigrants who wait for work every morning just off of International Boulevard in Oakland.
Juarez, a Mayan, native Quiche speaker and green-card holder, is among about 25,000 Guatemalans in the Bay Area, according to 2004 Census Bureau data.
The Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles estimates that as many as 100,000 to 150,000 Guatemalans may be working in the United States illegally, after a wave of immigration from the Central American country during the past year.
Congress approved the TPS program in 1990 to shelter immigrants whose homelands are racked by war or natural disasters. It has been applied to people from Sudan, Somalia, Burundi, Liberia and Sierra Leone in recent years.
Hondurans and Nicaraguans affected by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and Salvadorans hit by a large earthquake in 2001 all were granted the special status and given a series of extensions that ranged from six to 18 months and that continue today.
"We're very optimistic that the Bush administration is going to hear the cries of the Central American community," said Marvin Andrade, director of programs for the Central American Resource Center. "We believe it is the most effective way to provide aid to the region."
Andrade said that if Guatemalans get protective status they will be able to continue to work and send money home to their families rebuilding their villages and economy.
Central American immigrants in the United States sent more than $6 billion home last year, Andrade said.
Extensions common
Groups that seek more limits on U.S. immigration oppose the frequent TPS extensions and say those people could better serve their countries by returning home.
"It's great to provide temporary shelter for people who are in desperate need but we don't have limitless ability to take people who end up staying here," said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for Numbers USA.
Jenks and others who seek to scale back immigration say that TPS is not a bad idea, but that it has never really been temporary -- the majority of those granted TPS have gotten multiple extensions, allowing them to stay indefinitely.
"For a lot of these TPS countries there is perpetual instability and disaster," said Will Adams, spokesman for Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., an outspoken critic of immigration policies.
Since 1990, immigrants from at least a dozen countries have been granted TPS. Some of the programs have expired. One TPS program that ended earlier this year affected about 300 nationals of Monteserrat, a Caribbean island with a volcano that the Department of Homeland Security determined would perpetually pose a risk to its citizens.
But Salvadorans and other Central Americans have been granted multiple extensions. Liberians in the United States recently won another year of TPS, first granted in 1991 and then terminated and re-approved several times.
Guatemalans are aware that their petition could be a long shot as Congress once again enters the debate over immigration.
"It's very difficult to get to the White House and Homeland Security these days," Andrade said.
Multiple disasters
The government is also considering a petition from Pakistan after the Oct. 8 earthquake that killed up to 80,000 people.
Estimates of hurricane deaths in Guatemala are approaching 1,000 with more than 100,000 living in shelters and camps.
Edgar Ayala, an Oakland graphic designer and member of the national steering board of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities, said Guatemalans here will contribute more if TPS allows them to come out of their shadow existence as undocumented workers to support their families and their nation.
"They will be able to have steady work as opposed to daily labor at the corner and they will not be deported," he said.
The Mercury News, 15 November 2005
