In a symbolic move, the Miami-Dade County School Board voted Wednesday for a resolution pressing the Trump administration and Congress to create new legal pathways for immigrants from Venezuela and Haiti who are losing their temporary immigration status.
The school board action comes only weeks after the Trump administration threw out protections that shielded roughly half a million Haitians from deportation, meaning they will lose their work permits under the Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, program and could be deported from the country by August. Roughly 350,000 Venezuelans also are losing their TPS status in the coming months.
The decision by Trump and his administration is part of a pledge he made during the presidential campaign to carry out mass deportations and specifically to scale back the use of TPS, which was widely expanded under the Biden administration to cover about 1 million immigrants.
The TPS designation gives people legal authority to be in the country but doesn’t provide a long-term path to citizenship. They are reliant on the Department of Homeland Security for renewing their status when it expires. It has been in place for decades, allowing people already in the United States to stay and work legally if their homelands are deemed unsafe.
School board member Danny Espino proposed the measure. His District 5 includes Doral, home to the nation's largest Venezuelan-American community.
Although school boards don't shape immigration policy at any government level, Espino said people in his district have approached him to talk about the consequences of eliminating TPS on Venezuelans in Doral.
Read more: 'You feel like a criminal': Venezuelans 'devastated' by Trump's TPS decision
" I know this type of conversation is outside the typical jurisdiction of our county, let alone our board meetings," Espino said at the meeting. "But again, being responsive to my district, I'm compelled to bring it forward… I stand in solidarity with the Venezuelan community and all those in my district."
The measure "calls on federal policymakers to create new measures that stabilize the immigration, employment, and protection status of law-abiding individuals previously covered by TPS... and are productive members of society."
It passed, 5-4. School board member Mary Blanco was among those who voted against the measure.
"What I was hoping [for] was an item that we do have jurisdiction over, something that is under our control," Blanco said. "And I was hoping to see something along the lines of, 'How can we increase the support to our students who may be coming to school dealing with anxiety, dealing with depression, with fear of what may or may not happen.'"
Steve Gallon, who co-sponsored the item along with Luisa Santos and Joseph Geller, said in Tuesday's meeting that in 2017 he introduced a similar item asking Trump to extend TPS for Haitians. It was approved unanimously.
Santos, who represents District 9, was an undocumented immigrant as a student of Miami-Dade County Public Schools. She shared that having her dreams and goals supported by her teachers and school leaders was deeply meaningful for her.
" They only pushed me to dream bigger and to work harder to achieve those goals," Santos said. "And while none of them could do anything about my immigration status, and we know very well that this board does not legislate on immigration, when those leaders did speak out for me, it meant everything."
