A TPS double standard on immigrants of color?

Flag of Ukraine Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Although violence consumed Afghanistan with the withdrawal of U.S. forces and the Taliban took power in August, the U.S. government only this week granted Temporary Protected Status to Afghan nationals.  Even though the Russian invasion of Ukraine just occurred, the U.S. government granted TPS to Ukrainians citizens before doing so for Afghans.  Why the difference in immediacy of action?  

Rebecca Morin for  USA TODAY  observes that

“[t]he [Biden] administration’s announcement for . . . TPS, for Afghans came weeks after the Department of Homeland Security granted the same protections for Ukrainians . . . . Critics point to a double standard: Refugees from Ukraine received TPS status in a just one week while it took months for those fleeing Afghanistan to receive the designation.

Some immigration advocates and Democratic lawmakers are slamming the Biden administration for its quick response to offer deportation protections for Ukrainians while seemingly dragging its feet on offering the same protections for majority Black and brown countries, including Cameroon where armed conflict in the country has grown in the past years. `We clearly see when it comes to people for Europe, it only took them a couple of days to decide to provide protection for Ukraine,’ said Guerline Jozef, president of the Haitian Bridge Alliance. `It clearly shows that when it comes to Black people, we always have to push through to validate our humanity.'”

KJ