Dear Friend,

We have astounding news to share: minutes ago, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would provide a 3-year extension to Haitian Temporary Protected Status (TPS). This is nothing short of historic:

• One of only 8 discharge petitions have received the required 218 signatures and forced a successful House vote since at least 1980;
• First discharge petition driven by a grassroots campaign, ever;
• First successful discharge petition on immigration.

Historic victories almost always require historic efforts. In this case, lead credit goes to the Haitian TPS recipients who took substantial risks to speak out, organize, tell their stories and put their name on lawsuits against the President. Representative Ayanna Pressley led the fight in the House. Scores of organizations representing Haitians in the US, workers, employers, people of faith, solidarity groups, immigration advocates and many, many others put their hands today to make this possible.

I would like to express my profound gratitude to the IJDH community: our staff who worked long hard hours organizing phonebanks and email campaigns, reaching out to media, recruiting allies, establishing strategy, and so much more; our volunteers who made thousands of calls to members of Congress; and especially, our financial supporters who made our work possible.

IJDH’s work on the discharge petition started last fall, when we were looking for a Plan B in case the Supreme Court overruled the injunctions that we were winning in court. I will confess that when my colleague Steve Forester first proposed that path, I rejected it as impossible. But Steve is persistent (I estimate that at least 20 Representatives signed the discharge petition just to stop Steve from calling them). At every conference call, more people joined. Then the winds changed—3 discharge petitions were passed by the House from November-January, and public opinion turned persistently against mass deportations, and we were ready for it. We obtained 27 discharge petition signatures in January, 101 more the first week of February, and on up to 218 by the end of March.

The fight now moves to the Senate, which has its own set of challenges. We are already working on materials for that fight, and you will hear from us on that when the time is right for another push. But for now, please celebrate with us, and give yourself a pat on the back!

Gratefully,

Brian Concannon

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