Local Liberians rally to salvage deportation protection program - As program expires, many cite jobs, deep ties to Minnesota, By Mila Koumpilova, Star Tribune staff, March 16, 2018
Liberians in Minnesota are making a last-ditch push to save a little-known deportation reprieve program, lobbying on Capitol Hill and issuing a plea to local employers.
The March 31 expiration date of the program, which has allowed natives of the West African country to stay and work in the United States since 2007, has spurred anxiety in one of North America's largest Liberian enclaves. Community efforts led U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen, a Republican, to team up with Democrats in the state's congressional delegation in urging the Trump administration to extend the program — called Deferred Enforced Departure, or DED.
[... Trump administration] decisions make DED's prospects murky, local Liberians say, even as they tout the program participants' deep community ties and outsized role in the metro's workforce in nursing homes and other health care sectors.
"We all live in fear," said Christina Wilson, a north metro DED recipient. "We don't know what will happen after the 31st."
With a bachelor's degree in management from her home country, Wilson started work as a nursing assistant at the Saint Therese Senior Services home in New Hope more than 15 years ago — a job she says she fell in love with. She sent money to her three children, who stayed back in Liberia with their grandmother.
In 2007, several years after Liberia's civil war ended, former President George W. Bush ended TPS for Liberia but allowed those in the program to remain on DED.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services doesn't know the number of people in the program, but back in 2007, the agency estimated about 4,200 Liberians would be eligible. Some community leaders in the Twin Cities believe as many as several thousand live in the metro, primarily in the north suburbs.
Dan Cadman, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, an influential Washington, D.C., group that advocates for reducing immigration, says it's time to end DED as well. [...] "Despite the idea that DED is a 'temporary' reprieve, it has existed for years and years — something not lost on the American people, and exactly the kind of thing that erodes confidence in the rule of law," Cadman said.
Local Liberians counter that after years of living legally in the United States, DED recipients are deeply enmeshed in the Twin Cities community. Some run small businesses and have children who are U.S. citizens.
Jamie Gulley, president of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, says more than 1,000 of the union's 35,000 members are Liberian, including Wilson, and that at least several thousand Liberians work in health care locally.
The union doesn't know how many rely on DED, but members are anxious about the expiration date. [...]
"These members are a vital part of our health care system," Gulley said. "This would have a pretty significant impact on the care Minnesotans rely on."
BOTTOM LINE: The strong Liberian presence in the nursing home 24/7 care segment is necessary for that segment of workforce need to be met.
Nursing home attendant work is not the appealing high-paying jobs the Trump alt-right whining middle-age white male folks whine over being lost in the U.S. of A. It is work they would not take. It is shift work, it is dealing with grandma and grandpa who might not have any remaining good control of body function, and handling other people's soiled Depends and assisting elderly when needed in toilet function gets done, thanks in large measure to regular hard working Liberians who within their sub-community have come to concentrate in nursing home care in a greater proportion than they represent, state wide.
Readers having kin in an elder care facility likely already understand the problem the Liberian workers face. The understanding needs to become more widespread. Other media outlets beyond Strib should inform themselves of the situation's dimensions, so that the public in general could be better informed.
The Strib article mentions Paulsen and Ellison on board; so where's my Rep. (for whom I never voted but am stuck with), Sir Thomas Emmer who is in DC in the House with a vote.
Readers, lobby Emmer to join the effort, please.
In Anoka, [HD 35A], one of the more recently built and well managed facilities is The Homestead, a VOA facility between the Anoka Northstar stop to the south and the former county mental homesite, north of The Homestead. It is expanding its facilities and the range of care offered in parallel with the body of elderly in the metro area needing to make the hard decision that it is time to give up general housing and enter a care-giving situation. The Homestead also offers intermediate care for those between hospitalization and return to home and regular activity. Liberian workers assist both functions.
Readers presently unfamiliar are urged to visit and talk to human resource people at The Homestead or another elder care site, to ask about the dependence upon Liberian workers within that segment of the job force. It would be an eye-opener for many.
Also, we are not talking about only low skill workers. In fairness to the range of skills within the Liberian community beyond attendant work, there are those who have attained nursing credentials. The Homestead employs several Liberian nurses, including one who is a wound care specialist nurse from within the metro Liberian community. However, it might be that those with advanced skill sets have an easier path to citizenship and permanent residency. It is those relying on DED who are on tenterhooks.
With the impression that Rep. Emmer and Stanley Hubbard are conversant with one another, getting either concerned would help getting both on board - Emmer in the House, Hubbard in media-information areas.
The situation needs attention and humane reactions. The Liberian workers themselves have sometimes for years been residents in our county and in the workforce while not accorded permanent residence status. The decade and a half of elder care work of Ms. Wilson as highlighted by Strib is but one instance. A caring view is that even apart from the compelling need for the work they do it is humane and decent to help lessen unnecessary stress within the Liberian community. Then, viewed from the lens of what they mean to the expanding elderly population of the metro area, there is more cause to support their remaining in country.
Please help.