Georgetown Law & UBN Life on Hold

Given worsening conditions, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft redesignated Liberia as a TPS country in 2002, because of the serious risk posed by involuntarily deporting Liberians in the United States. 62 TPS for Liberia was redesignated by then-DHS Secretary Tom Ridge in 2003 and was set to expire in 2007. One month before the expiration, former President George W. Bush designated Liberia for DED protection for an additional 18 months. 63 In March 2009, former President Barack Obama again extended DED for Liberians, and continued to do so in 2010, 2011, and 2013, for periods of 18 to 24 months each. In March 2014, the first Ebola infection was detected in Liberia. Devastated by consecutive civil wars, Liberia’s healthcare system was not prepared for Ebola, and thousands of Liberian citizens died. In November 2014, as a result of the larger Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, the Obama Administration extended TPS status to Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone for eighteen months. 64 However, the Obama Administration also implemented a 180-day TPS registration period, after which people from those countries would lose eligibility for TPS. In 2016, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson declined to extend Liberia’s 2014 TPS designation further, based on the premise that improved conditions in Liberia no longer supported TPS designation. 65 However, on the same day of Secretary Johnson’s announcement, President Obama extended DED to Liberians until March 2018. 66 Unsurprisingly, the TrumpAdministration’s anti-immigrant agenda left the TPS andDEDprotections twisting in the wind, along with the people relying on them. In 2018, former President Donald Trump terminated the DED designation for Liberia, with a twelve-month long wind-down period lasting until March 31, 2019. In response to President Trump’s decision to terminate DED for Liberia, activists and lawyers fought back in the courts. Following the announcement of the DEDwind-down period in 2018, plaintiffs filed suit in African Communities Together v. Trump seeking to enjoin the termination of DED protection for Liberia. 67 They argued that the political instability and Ebola crisis that led to DED designation were still harming Liberia and that it remained unsafe for nationals to return. Ending the program prematurely, they argued, risked harm to the local communities and could not be motivated by anything other than racial animus. District Court Judge Hillman found that the court lacked the authority to compel the President to extend DED. 68 The constant back and forth of different programs being implemented and then rescinded, year-to-year, meant many Liberians in the United States were never certain they could stay. The risk of running afoul of immigration law is and was an ever-present risk with dire consequences. For many Liberians, they risked returning to a land they were no longer familiar with, or no longer called home. Navigating the patchwork legal system is hard for anyone, and many Liberians who attempted to do so were still worried. 62 Id. 63 Forrest G. Read, Liberian Holders of DED Status May Have to Leave the U.S. Following Federal Judge’s Decision, THE NAT’L LAW REVIEW, (Oct. 30, 2019), https://www.natlawreview.com/article/liberian-holders-ded-status-may-have-to-leave-us-following- federal-judge-s-decision. 64 DHS Announces Temporary Protected Status Designations for Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Servs. (Nov. 20, 2014), https://www.uscis.gov/archive/dhs-announces-temporary-protected-status-designations-for-liberia-guinea-and- sierra-leone. 65 Sussis, supra note 61. 66 Id. 67 African Communities Together v. Trump, case no. 1:19-cv-10432 (D. Mass.). 68 Read, supra note 63.

Life On Hold: Black Immigrants & the Promise of Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness

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