We, as Massachusetts Interfaith Worker Justice, faith-based organizations and institutions, and faith leaders, pledge to stand in solidarity with our immigrant neighbors. We urge immediate action and awareness around the protection of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) Program as well as a pathway to residency for TPS holders. The Trump administration’s decision to terminate TPS designations for Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti, Honduras and El Salvador places countless lives at risk of deportation back to life-threatening conditions and will tear TPS holder parents from their 273,000 U.S. citizen children.

As people of faith, we are called upon to welcome the sojourner and treat them with dignity, respect, and love. We ask that you also take the moral high ground and show mercy to our immigrant brothers and sisters.

The TPS Program is a life-saving immigration program that allows foreign nationals to remain in the U.S. and work legally if, while they were in the U.S., something catastrophic happened in their country of origin that prevented their safe return. Right now TPS protects approximately 450,000 people from 10 countries who would otherwise be subjected to disease, violence, starvation, the aftermath of natural disasters, and other life-threatening conditions. Despite harsh conditions in these countries, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has heartlessly terminated TPS for Sudan (effective November 2, 2018), Nicaragua (effective January 5, 2019), Haiti (effective July 22, 2019), El Salvador (effective September 9, 2019) and most recently, Honduras (effective Jan 5, 2020).

In Massachusetts, 7,800 people are TPS holders from El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti and 5,300 U.S.- born children in Massachusetts have parents from those three countries. The reality is that terminating TPS will devastate our economy: $645.8 million will be lost from the state GDP annually without TPS holders from El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti. The U.S. economy (GDP, Medicare and Social Security contributions) will lose billions.

By welcoming those in need, TPS translates our core American and faith-based values of human dignity and respect into action. No matter how we pray, we are collectively called to uphold the innate dignity of all people and never turn our backs on those in need.

The Quran instructs “And (as for) those who believed and fled and struggled hard in Allah's way, and those who gave shelter and helped, these are the believers truly; they shall have forgiveness and honorable provision.” (Quran 8:74)

The Torah reads “And you are to love those who are strangers, for you yourselves were strangers in Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:19)

In the Bible, Leviticus says "The strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as the natives among you, and you shall love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Leviticus 19:33-34).

We urge you to reflect: Are you going to devalue the lives of vulnerable people? To take away parents’ abilities to feed, protect, and support their families economically and emotionally? To turn your backs on the medical professionals, maintenance workers, farmers, airport workers and the hundreds of thousands of other workers who make up the backbone of our country?

Or will you open your hearts to the voices of children and parents pleading that we do all we can to keep them together, and take a stand to protect immigrant families in Massachusetts?

We choose the latter. We hope, we pray, and we expect that you will too.