Syrians in the US fear deportation if ‘protected status’ is removed

Syrians Mohammed Alala, his wife Dania, and their two US-born children Taim and Amr, are among those who fear being deported if their Temporary Protected Status is not extended. The family lives in Miramar, Florida. (Reuters)

NEW YORK: Amr Sinan, a software engineer from Damascus, has built a life for himself outside Boston after fleeing the Syrian war.
Since arriving in the US in December 2013, he found a good job, hiked in the country’s national parks and says he has generally been welcomed by Americans.
But fears over whether the US government will extend the temporary protection from deportation offered to 6,000 Syrians means the 34-year-old is deeply worried about his future.
“For me, it’s a life-or-death situation,” Sinan told Arab News. “The officials must assume that this is the last lifeline. If this extension does not happen, we will have to leave, we will be deported, and sent back to the fighting, missiles and a war that is definitely going on even if it is not in the headlines anymore.”
The Department of Homeland Security will decide by the end of this month whether to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Syrians, or instead to scrap the scheme and leave them at risk of deportation after their status expires on March 31.
TPS, which began in 1990, offers protection from deportation to immigrants already in the US, including those who entered illegally, from countries affected by natural disasters and conflicts.
US President Donald Trump has moved to cut the number of immigrants living in the US. Earlier this month, his team axed TPS for 200,000 Salvadorans after doing the same for Nicaraguans and Haitians last year.
Syria is also included in Trump’s travel ban that blocks most people from six Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the US. The president says the ban is for security reason but opponents say it is Islamophobic and unlawful.
For Syrians living in the US under TPS, the travel ban adds to their fear that they may not be allowed to continue to reside in the country.
Syria remains extremely dangerous after almost eight years of conflict that has killed 500,000 people and forced about 5.5 million to flee across borders — mostly to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
While territory held by Daesh has been mostly wiped out, fighting drags on elsewhere. This week, there has been an alleged poison gas attack in Damascus and an incursion of Turkish forces in northwestern Syria.
Syrians who are forced to return fear they will be punished by the regime or forced to join the military.
For Sinan, the ongoing destruction in Syria is all-too apparent. His family was spread far and wide by the war and he says there is no home to go back to.
He worries that Trump administration officials will ignore this, scrap TPS for Syrians and send those who cannot apply for alternative visas back to the country.
“Look at the how this administration has behaved. It’s unpredictable and not logical. That’s why we’re so fearful now,” Sinan told Arab News.
The American Relief Coalition for Syria, a coalition of 13 aid groups that operate in Syria, has tried to convince homeland security officials to extend the scheme for Syrians, the group’s coordinator Matthew Chrastek said.
“More than 10,000 civilians were killed in 2017 alone because of continued violence and daily airstrikes, forcing TPS holders to return to Syria is unthinkable,” Chrastek told Arab News.
“Failing to renew and re-designate TPS means sending civilians back into a country that continues to be heavily scarred by violence and a scarcity of resources.”
Changes to the TPS scheme under the Trump administration mean that over the next two years about 250,000 people who previously had permission to live and work in the US will be subject to deportation if they remain.
Syrians gained TPS designation in March 2012, months after Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime sent in tanks and launched airstrikes to quell protesters in the hotbed cities of Daraa, Homs and Hama.
At the time, homeland security, a 240,000-strong agency tasked with securing America’s borders, noted: “Extraordinary and temporary conditions in Syria that prevent Syrian nationals from returning in safety, and that permitting such aliens to remain temporarily in the US would not be contrary to the national interest of the US.”
The status was renewed four times under the Obama administration as the war widened into multi-front fighting between opposition fighters, radicals and Kurds that sucked in foreign armies from Russia, Turkey, Iran and the US.
Tyler Houlton, a spokesman for homeland security told Arab News: “No decision has been made regarding TPS for Syria.”
Sinan is worried that Syrians are far down the list of concerns in Congress, where a debate is currently raging over the fate of 700,000 mostly Latino immigrants who came to the US illegally as children.
He works hard, writing code for an online retailer, and uses his spare time to hike in the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park, which, he said, are worlds apart from the battle-scarred landscapes back in Syria.
Sinan has misgivings about the Trump administration, but said Americans have generally been friendly and welcoming. He worries that as Syria’s complex war appears less frequently on US news channels, they forget how grisly the conflict remains.
“It’s hard for Americans to understand this. They need to think of the Syrians here as 7,000 sad stories from the movies they are watching in the theater,” Sinan said. “The only thing here is that it’s not acting, it’s the real thing.”