GuatemalaTPS.Info

Our thanks go out to one of our commenters, Pablo, for sharing a link to a Univision story covering Guatemala’s renewal of its TPS request. In short, the Guatemalan government has asked that last year’s request for Temporary Protected Status be revived in light of the recent disasters that have hit the country.

This year’s earthquakes and other disasters have put an incredible strain on an already-struggling country, leading to a humanitarian crisis. In these conditions, it is perfectly reasonable for the United States to extend the most basic immigration relief to Guatemalan nationals already here.

While we have been down this road before (just last year), hope springs eternal, and we can pray that the upcoming election will have a positive effect on TPS’s chances this time around.

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US Congressman Al Green (D-Texas) introduced a new bill yesterday to grant TPS to Pakistan following the dramatic floods that struck that country this summer.  While we certainly support the bill (indeed, the link above is to our sister blog, which dedicated to the Pakistani TPS request), we have to express our disappointment that the Guatemalan request has not seen the same kind of Congressional support.

The only Congressional action in support of Guatemala’s request has been House Resolution 1462, which was introduced in June and has been languishing in silence since July. The resolution is quite different from today’s bill, in that it is merely an expression of support for the people of Guatemala and not an actual law granting TPS.  It is incredible that our Congress was unable to pass even this meek resolution, and that it has stood by so silently with no action in support of Guatemala.

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We recently posted news of an apparent planned meeting between Presidents Obama and Colom.  Since that time, we have been trying to confirm whether this meeting will actually happen, or whether it is merely a possible event with little chance of occuring. Unfortunately, our research to date appears to indicate the former – that there is no meeting scheduled between the two presidents during the SICA meeting in the Dominican Republic next month.  Indeed, it appears unlikely that President Obama will even be at the SICA summit.

Of course, we are not privy to the President’s actual plans, and it is entirely possible that such a meeting is in fact scheduled. But it is increasingly unlikely that Mr. Obama will make the trip to the Dominican Republic.  As always, stay tuned for more news!

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El 11 de noviembre de 2010,

El Presidente de Guatemala, Alvaro Colom, está programado para reunirse con el Presidente Obama y discutir la solicitud de su país para el TPS. La reunión está programada para la primera parte de diciembre durante una cumbre en la República Dominicana, de acuerdo con un informe publicado por Prensa Libre.  Regulares de este blog recordarán que hemos mencionado la posibilidad de esta reunión un tiempo atrás, pero no hemos podido obtener mucho para confirmarlo hasta ahora.

Esta es una noticia excitante, y da crédito a la sugerencia de que el liderazgo de guatemalteco había sido intencionalmente tranquilo sobre este tema durante la temporada de elecciones del E.E.U.U.  Ahora que las elecciones están detrás de nosotros, es probable que la administración de Colom vea una ventana estrecha durante el cual podrá concederse la solicitud TPS.  Manténgase en contacto para más noticias.

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Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom is scheduled to meet with president Obama and discuss his country’s request for TPS. The meeting is scheduled for the first part of December during a summit in the Dominican Republic, according to a report posted a few minutes ago by Prensa Libre.  Regular readers of this blog may recall that we mentioned the possibility of this meeting a while back, but we have been unable to obtain much in the way of confirmation until now.

This is exciting news, and it lends credence to the suggestion that the Guatemalan leadership had been intentionally quiet on this topic during the US election season. Now that the elections are behind us, it is likely that the Colom administration sees a narrow window during which the TPS request may be granted.  Stay tuned for more news.

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We made it through the election and are getting into the now-or-never phase of the TPS request.  The two months leading up to the election were remarkably silent, with nearly no TPS news and absolute silence from the official channels.  But now that the election is behind us, things may finally be on the move.

The first sign of this was a short statement from Guatemalan Foreign Minister Haroldo Rodas, who was quoted in Prensa Libre as stating that the TPS process is in American hands now. Guatemala has complied with all the application requirements, has gathered broad support for its request, and can now only wait for a decision from President Obama’s administration.

The statement itself holds little news, but the fact that Mr. Rodas has finally said something is far more exciting.  As we noted, the official channels were silent leading up to the election, and it appears that our suspicion that discussion of TPS pending the vote may have had some weight.  We now have the first official comment in months coming from the Guatemalan government just two days after the US elections.

Is this a sign of progress? We can’t say for sure, but we certainly hope so.

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Many of you have noticed that our site has stayed quiet for the last week on the biggest story in US-Guatemalan relations; the discovery that US researchers, with help from Guatemalan health officials, intentionally infected Guatemalan prisoners with Syphilis.  Our decision to not report on this issue was a difficult one, but it was intentional, as we felt that the story had little to do with either TPS or immigration in general.  Still, we held some hope that either the Obama or Colom administration would use this opportunity to press home the other main issue in US-Guatemalan relations: TPS.

Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case. Prensa Libre recently reported that President Colom has clearly stated that TPS did not come up during his recent conversation with President Obama.  The conversation occurred when Mr. Obama called Mr. Colom to formally apologize for the abhorrent research. Very little detail was given on the content of the call, and there was some speculation that President Colom may have asked that some progress be made on the TPS issue. However, the Guatemalan president’s statement on the issue makes it clear that this was not the case.

We keenly understand the sensitive nature of international relations, and would not presume to judge what one president should say to another, especially at such a delicate time. We do, however, hope that both sides considered the elephant in the room, even if nobody mentioned it explicitly.

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On October 1, the Chicago City Council’s Committee on Human Relations voted in support of the Guatemalan TPS Request. Specifcially, the Committee voted in support of a resolution presented by Alderman Roberto Maldonado, of the City’s 26th Ward.  The resolution calls upon President Obama to grant the TPS request on humanitarian grounds, and this vote is yet another example of the growing political support on all levels of the US political world.  After passing through the Committee, the resolution was passed to the whole Council, which voted on the matter on October 6.  The results of that voted have not been posted on the City Council’s site yet, but we will update this post as soon as we hear something. If any of our readers were present at the Oct 6 Chicago City Council meeting and can tell us how the vote went, please drop us a line at Guatemala@Kolasinski-Law.com

While some people may question the significance of a City Council resolution, we’re not dealing with just any city here.  In addition to being one of America’s largest cities, Chicago is the adopted home of President Obama and is the place where he started his political career.  Chicago plays such an important role in the current administration that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel just resigned his position so that he can run for Mayor of Chicago. So, there’s a very good chance that this vote will have some impact on President Obama’s decision.  Of course, it is still quite unlikely that we will have a final verdict before the upcoming election.

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U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala Stephen McFarland submitted a report to Washington on the effects of Tropical Storm Agatha and the volcanic eruption this spring.  While the report itself is not available at the moment, the fact that the report was submitted is a clear indication that progress is being made on the TPS request, and that the Obama administration has not completely forgotten about Guatemala.

The report follows a visit by Ambassador McFarland to San Lucas Tolimán, which was seriously impacted by Agatha. About 120 families are still without permanent shelter there, with rebuilding efforts being led by USAID and the local Catholic diocese. The official story on Ambassador McFarland’s visit to San Lucas is available here (in English) and here (in Spanish).

The submission of the report is a good sign for everyone awaiting TPS, and will hopefully lead to more progress on the request.  It is still unlikely that a final decision will be reached before November, but November keeps getting closer, so news like this is certainly a positive sign.

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U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has issued a statement congratulating Guatemala on the 189th anniversary of its independence.  The statement recognizes “the great contributions” made by the Guatemalan community in the United States, and reiterated the “close partnership” between the people of the two nations. In addition, Secretary Clinton took the opportunity to highlight the Pathways to Prosperity Initiative and the Central American Regional Security Initiatives, two U.S. programs that provide assistance to Guatemala.

However, the statement is silent on the one U.S.-Guatemalan issue of greatest interest to readers of this blog (and to that greatly-contributing Guatemalan community in general). The issue is, of course, the matter of TPS. While Secretary Clinton did wish “a happy independence day and a prosperous year,” and noted that she “look[s] forward to continuing the partnership between our countries,” she made no mention of the recent natural disasters, or of the outstanding request for Temporary Protected Status.

There has, unfortunately, been nothing but silence on the issue for months now, and it appears highly unlikely that we will get any real news before November.  With election season in full swing and a raft of other issues on the President’s plate, it is hard to imagine any immediate movement on this issue. The primary hope for the many members of the Guatmalan diaspora anxiously awaiting word on this most pressing of matters is that something positive will come out of the scheduled November meeting between presidents Obama and Colom.

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