WASHINGTON, CMC – Caribbean-American Congressional Representatives Yvette D. Clarke and Steven Horsford, along with Washington State Congressional Representative Pramila Jayapal, are leading 46 of their colleagues in a letter to United States President Joe Biden calling on the US administration to designate the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), as the country faces extreme human rights violations and persistent violence against civilians at the hands of the rebel group, M23.
Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, represents the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, New York; Horsford, the son of a Trinidadian immigrant, represents the 4th Congressional District in Nevada; and Jayapal, the 7th Congressional District in Washington State.
TPS offers temporary relief from removal and work authorization for eligible foreign nationals already in the United States who cannot return safely to their home country.
“The people of the DRC are suffering extreme, horrifying, and irreparable human rights violations. The civilian population have faced decades of violence, arbitrary detention, sexual and gender-based violence, torture, labor trafficking, summary executions, and forced recruitment as soldiers, including children, which are all violations of international human rights treaties,” wrote the lawmakers in their letter to Biden.
“More than 6.9 million people in the DRC have been forcibly displaced, one of the largest internal displacements in the world, while the country also hosts more than half a million refugees from neighboring countries,” they added. “These factors compound, making it more difficult for Congolese people to find a safe country to find refuge.
“We urge you to use all available pathways and resources under the law to protect vulnerable Congolese, including a designation of TPS for DRC or a grant of Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for DRC nationals and Special Student Relief (SSR) for Congolese students,” the legislators continued. “Taking any of these steps would ensure that Congolese people currently in the United States can be protected from being sent back to the violence that is running rampant in their home country.”
According to the United Nations, more than 6.9 million people in the DRC are forcibly displaced, constituting “one of the largest internal displacement and humanitarian crises in the world.”
The congressional representatives said the DRC hosts more than half a million refugees from its neighboring countries, “the majority of whom live outside of refugee camps and settlements in inhumane conditions.”
“This regional instability makes it even more difficult for Congolese to find a safe country in which to find refuge,” they said, noting that the United States and the United Nations have previously recognized the brutality of the current armed conflict and the threat to DRC territory by the “well-organized and ruthless rebel group, M23, which is the group most responsible for this current war.”
In July 2023, the legislators said 24 UN entities came together to call for immediate action to protect Congolese women and girls, who are particularly at risk of sexual and gender-based violence.
However, they said that protecting this population has been difficult and that several factors, including epidemics, natural hazards, and food insecurity, have limited the viability of the international response.
Since October 2023, the lawmakers said M23 has taken over the main roads leading to the regional capital and several regions around the country, leaving millions of people in a particularly vulnerable state.
The congressional representatives noted that throughout Biden’s time in office, the United States has accepted “far more refugees from the DRC than from any other country – a clear demonstration of the extent and nature of this crisis.”
They said that about 2,000 Congolese citizens in the United States could immediately benefit from implementing TPS and that roughly 6,000 US citizens who live with Congolese would be eligible for TPS.
“A designation of TPS would ensure we do not separate these families and force them to return to a nation facing one of the biggest humanitarian crises of modern history,” the legislators told Biden. To uphold our commitment to protecting human rights, we must ensure that Congolese nationals in the United States are eligible to remain here, so long as it is unsafe for them to return home.”
The lawmakers pointed to Section 244(b)(1)(A) of the US Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which permits the Secretary of US Homeland Security to designate a country for TPS if there is an “ongoing armed conflict,” such that the return of nationals to that country would “pose a serious threat to their safety.”
Similarly, legislators said that the nationals of a country may receive a temporary administrative stay of removal in the form of a DED by Executive Order or a Presidential Memorandum under such circumstances.
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