Miami, Florida (CNN) — Registration for the temporary protected status program to help Haitians living in the United States has been extended for six months, a federal official announced Monday.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas announced the extension at a town hall meeting in Miami six months after the January 12 earthquake that killed more than 220,000 people.

“Since the earthquake, [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] has maintained an ongoing dialogue with Haitian community leaders and advocates, and we have heard that many Haitians need more time to apply” for temporary protected status, Mayorkas said in a news release announcing the extension. “Extending the registration period will afford more eligible individuals a chance to remain safely in the United States at this time of crisis and devastation in Haiti.”

The deadline for Haitians to register for the program, which had been July 20, has been extended to January 18, 2011, he said.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced the program in January, in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. It designates Haitians for temporary protected status for an 18-month period beginning January 21, 2010.

The status allows eligible Haitians to continue living in the United States for the duration of the program and to obtain work authorization for the duration of the program.

“Providing a temporary refuge for Haitian nationals who are currently in the United States and whose personal safety would be endangered by returning to Haiti is part of this administration’s continuing efforts to support Haiti’s recovery,” Napolitano said in a statement in January.

The designation applies to those Haitians who have lived continuously in the United States since the January 12 earthquake; those Haitian nationals who first entered the United States after that date are not eligible.

The filing fee for most people ages 14 to 64 who apply for a work permit is $470, but more than 90 percent of applications to waive registration fees are being granted, Mayorkas said.

“We and lots of other advocates had been asking for this,” said Susanna Barciela, policy director at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center.

Just 44,500 applications had been filed as of April 9, according to the USCIS website. Barciela estimated the number of people eligible to file under the program at 70,000 to 100,000.

“Many are afraid that this is a trick and that once the government has their address, they will be deported,” Barciela said. “Extending the application period will give advocates like us more time to reach out and talk to the community about the benefits of TPS, which will allow more Haitians to make a better-informed decision.”

The program helps by allowing those who are in the United States to earn money that they can then send to their relatives in Haiti, she said.

“If you have people here who are providing remittances, it’s very helpful to Haiti; it’s people-to-people help.”

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/07/12/florida.haiti.immigration/?hpt=T2&fbid=Y-71bcd4Kwi

Jeff Jn Charles had, for months, been nervous about leaving the house. He feared that he’d be sent back to Haiti if someone discovered he had no identification. But one day this month, he sat in the Eglise Baptiste Du Calvaire, a Haitian church in Adelphi, proudly holding up his new Maryland identification card.

“I have an ID,” he said, smiling. “Now, I can say, ‘I’m Jeff.’ ”

Jn Charles, 25, is one of 35,005 Haitians who have received temporary protected status (TPS) since the Jan. 12 earthquake in their homeland. The program allows those who can prove they have lived continuously in the United States since that date to remain in the country legally for 18 months, regardless of their status when they applied.

On Monday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services plans to announce that it will extend the July 20 registration deadline to Jan. 18. About 70,000 to 100,000 Haitians are eligible; as of Friday, 55,786 had applied. Most live in Florida and New York. As of June, 1,407 people in the Washington area had applied.

“The registration pace has been slower than expected,” said Alejandro Mayorkas, director of the immigration service.

Barriers include the difficulty of obtaining necessary documents from Haiti, the $470 application fee and a fear that signing up could lead to deportation. Those applying for TPS tend to be in the United States illegally or on visas that are set to expire.

The program is not a path to citizenship or permanent residency, but it offers people like Jn Charles a way to work and live in the country without fear of deportation.

In Port-au-Prince, Jn Charles was a business student. He arrived in the United States last year on a medical visa to seek treatment for an eye injury. The visa expired in November, but he stayed in his uncle’s Silver Spring home to continue treatment. He was, Jn Charles said, afraid all the time.

“Living without papers is very difficult, very stressful,” he said. “I couldn’t go out, I couldn’t even drive, I couldn’t even have an ID, I couldn’t safely walk on the street. If there’s a police officer who might ask me for my papers, you were afraid. And you don’t want to confront the situation.” Jn Charles didn’t dare look for work.

On Jan. 12, the life he had left behind in Haiti collapsed in crushed concrete and steel. Like many Haitians in the United States, he waited anxiously for news. When the dust cleared he learned that his school, his church, and many of his friends and family members had disappeared under the rubble.

After the earthquake, Haitians who were already in the United States became eligible for TPS, making Haiti the first country to become eligible since Sudan in 2004.

USCIS and community organizations held information sessions, helped people apply for fee waivers and warned them about scammers offering “help” filling out the forms. Mayorkas said that 92 percent of fee-waiver applications are being granted and that TPS “should be a source of comfort rather than a source of fear.”

Still, at the Caribbean Help Center in Silver Spring, only about half of eligible Haitians have applied, the Rev. Evans Faustin said. Besides balking at the fees, he said, “they’re afraid it’s going to end. They’re afraid it’s a way for [immigration authorities] to get their name and information.”

Faustin said he has tried to convince them otherwise: “It’s a really good thing; I firmly believe so. That’s why I encourage all the people, ‘You never know, so go ahead, take the chance.’ I have seen so many lives change, especially for young people.”

Faustin said one woman had been in the United States illegally for 10 or 15 years and was in deportation proceedings when she applied and got a work permit.

“Now she’s working,” he said. “She has a Social Security number, which she wanted for so long.”

The status could extend for years if previous disasters are any indication. Nicaraguans, Salvadorans and Hondurans, who received TPS after natural disasters dating as far back as 1999, continue to have theirs extended, and an 18-month extension for Salvadorans was announced Friday.

Each extension requires a new application from TPS holders.

The Rev. Jean St. Ulme, pastor at Eglise Baptiste Du Calvaire and Jn Charles’s uncle, said Haiti remains in such disarray that it is unlikely to be able to accept repatriation of its nationals anytime soon.

“Definitely it should be extended, because Haiti will not be good even 10 years from now,” he said. “So there’s no way they can give it now and then next year say, ‘You have to go back to your country.’ ”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/11/AR2010071103739.html

WASHINGTON — The United States on Monday granted Haitians living illegally in the country before January’s devastating earthquake a six-month extension to apply for a special asylum relief program.

In the days after the January 12 earthquake, President Barack Obama’s administration gave Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to thousands of Haitians who have sneaked into the United States in the past years.

An immigrant granted TPS can stay legally in the United States for 18 months without fear of deportation, and following a review of their case, can obtain a temporary work permit.

“Eligible Haitian nationals will have an additional 180 days to apply for Temporary Protected Status,” said a statement from the department of US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

“Many Haitians need more time to apply for TPS,” the statement added.

Only Haitians living in the United States prior to the earthquake that flattened the capital Port-au-Prince and surrounding towns at the cost of some 250,000 lives are eligible.

The new deadline for applications to be filed is January 18, 2011.

The special protection, which allows groups of illegal immigrants to renew or obtain drivers licenses, and work legally, is meant as relief for countries reeling from natural disaster or political strife.

Supporters argue that the move helps Haiti to rebuild, as immigrants send remittances to loved ones in the poorest country in the Americas, which is struggling to rebuild exactly six months after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake.

Before the order was given in January, authorities had been processing deportation orders for 30,000 Haitians now in the United States.

The non-profit Migration Policy Institute however says 76,000 illegal immigrants from Haiti live in the United States, with a further 535,000 legally residing here, two thirds of them being adults of a working age.

Hundreds of Haitians attempt the perilous 700-mile (1,100-kilometer) journey to the Florida coast each year, some in rafts, others smuggled by traffickers.

But US officials estimate that thousands of Haitians have died at sea in failed bids to flee the poverty, unrest and natural disasters that have beset their homeland for decades.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iie0G5Ik6BcHVtUwh7xVxxB05_bA

THE U.S. CONFERENCE of Mayors, meeting at its annual convention this month in Oklahoma City, did something extraordinary. With no dissent, the mayors called on President Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to “promptly” grant entry to 55,000 Haitian visa candidates with relatives in the United States, a measure that would result in tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in annual cash transfers flowing into Haiti’s gasping economy. And what was the response from the administration, which has pledged to do all it can to alleviate the humanitarian suffering that befell Haiti in January’s earthquake? Silence.

The issue here is a cohort of Haitians whose relatives live in the United States as citizens or permanent residents, and whose immigration petitions have already been approved by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In other words, they are on their way to the United States sooner or later anyway, once the visa backlog — the result of quotas set by Congress — is cleared. The main question is whether Haitians will face a wait for visas that can last from four years (for the spouses and children under 18 of legal residents of the United States) to 11 years (for siblings of U.S. citizens). Given Haiti’s travails, they can and should be moved to the front of the line — if not by the administration, then by Congress.

There is a recent precedent. Under a program launched by DHS in 2007, the United States has granted entry to about 28,000 Cubans whose family-based immigration petitions have been approved. In effect, they are allowed to wait here rather than in Cuba while the government processes their applications to become permanent residents. And while Haitians would not enjoy the same legal status as Cubans, who are eligible for green cards a year after arriving, the administration could grant them “temporary protective status” on arrival and allow them to work. With similar effect, Congress could adjust its quotas to expedite the issuance of visas to Haitians.

The mayors’ resolution was remarkable because their cities — not the federal government, not the states — might bear the costs associated with an influx of Haitian immigrants. Many of the immigrants would be low-skilled workers with no mastery of English. In the handful of places where most would settle, services, schools and budgets would be stretched — even as municipalities face high unemployment and anemic bank accounts.

Nonetheless, the mayors rightly cited the profound suffering in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, and the moral imperative facing America, the richest.

The Obama administration was quick and forceful in directing personnel, resources and public attention to Haiti after the Jan. 12 quake, and it has pledged large amounts of aid to rebuild the shattered country. Still, no aid program would help Haiti as much as admitting the tens of thousands of Haitians caught in the visa backlog. Remittances to Haiti amounted to about $1.5 billion last year and may reach $2 billion this year. Mr. Obama could further strengthen that lifeline.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/25/AR2010062504520.html

MIAMI — With their homeland ravaged by an earthquake, more than 50,000 Haitians have applied to legally stay and work in the U.S. and immigration advocates are urging others not to miss their chance.

The deadline to apply for temporary protected status is July 20. Only Haitians who were already living in the U.S. illegally when the earthquake struck Jan. 12 are eligible.

Temporary protected status, or TPS, allows immigrants from countries experiencing armed conflict or environmental disasters to stay and work in the U.S. for 18 months.

As of June 4, 51,881 applications have been processed, more than half of them in Florida, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. About 11 percent have been rejected for being incomplete or lacking the proper fee.

Federal officials initially said they expected about 100,000 to 200,000 Haitians to apply for temporary protected status. The government now says that’s actually the number of applications they can handle. They expect about 70,000 applications by mid-July.

Immigration advocates say some Haitians who are eligible won’t apply because they don’t have $470 for application fees, or because they fear stepping forward will only lead to trouble and deportation to Haiti.

“We understand this community is going through incredible hardship,” CIS spokeswoman Ana Santiago said. “We’re urging people to please register, because this is something that will help you deal with the situation.”

The Haitian community center Sant La in Miami offers small loans to some applicants. Others have been trying to save up the money before the deadline, instead of asking immigration officials for a fee waiver.

Executive Director Gepsie Metellus said some Haitians regard the offer of temporary protected status warily, believing the documentation just makes it easier to deport them later. They don’t see it leading to better paying jobs that can support their families in the U.S. and in Haiti.

“All we can do is debunk the myths that are out there,” Metellus said. “We encourage people to apply and point out that the government knows where you are now, and they’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

Manouse Jean of Miami said temporary protected status will be a relief from years of frequent relocations to elude immigration authorities after her appeal for asylum was denied. She fled Haiti’s political instability in 1999.

“I used to be afraid to work, to go walking in the streets. To catch the bus, my heart would be beating so fast,” the 33-year-old said Thursday after dropping off documents for her TPS application at the Archdiocese of Miami’s Catholic Legal Services.

She joined hundreds of people who packed a Haitian neighborhood church in January for information about temporary protected status. She hopes TPS also will allow her to pursue training for licensed practical nurses so she can find work caring for earthquake survivors if she eventually is deported to Haiti.

“If I can be an LPN, and if immigration sends me back, I will have something to survive with,” Jean said. “With TPS, I am happy. I’m not scared anymore.”

Haitians who miss the July deadline will not be able to apply again if the U.S. renews temporary protected status for Haiti, as it has for more than a decade for Central American countries that had to rebuild after a 1998 hurricane.

“If they don’t get in this time, they’re going to be sorry because the doors to this TPS will be closed to them forever,” Metellus said.

Haiti’s government and Haitian advocates in the U.S. for years pleaded for TPS after hurricanes, massive floods, food riots and political turmoil in the Caribbean country. Their pleas were denied, until the catastrophic earthquake five months ago.

Since then, the U.S. also temporarily stopped deporting Haitians, even those in detention. About 31,000 Haitians have orders to leave, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Haitian migrants interdicted at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard continue to be returned to their homeland; nearly 600 since October.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h3-xkjfd_KkYtFN4obYFedRnyKtAD9G921O00