2024-03-04 12:06:24
Evelyn was working in Ecuador’s thriving tourism industry — made famous by the Galapagos Islands, Incan ruins and national parks — when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the country and she lost her job.
With a small motorcycle and young son to support, she became a delivery driver, traveling all over the city of Quito and witnessing firsthand the effects of the country’s economic downturn and increasing violence.
As Ecuador emerged from pandemic lockdowns, a new crisis took over the once-peaceful country: gang violence spurred by international cartels. Since 2018, the murder rate has quadrupled. Several particularly violent episodes made international news in recent years: a prison riot resulting in beheadings, the assassination of an anti-gang presidential candidate and the takeover of a broadcast TV station by masked gunmen.
Evelyn sold everything she owned in Ecuador and left, flying first to Spain and then to Minnesota, home to a growing number of Ecuadorians. She hoped to find a stable job, an English-language education for her son and a safer environment.
But without legal residency or a work permit, Evelyn could only find informal work cleaning office buildings. She had no family or friends in Minnesota to help care for her son, and struggled to pay for rent and child care despite working 12 to 14 hours per day.
Now, she’s helping lead a group of other Ecuadorians to lobby the federal government to designate Ecuador for Temporary Protected Status, which would allow Ecuadorians already in the U.S. to stay and legally work for as long as the TPS designation is active.
Countries designated for TPS include Afghanistan, Somalia, El Salvador, Haiti, Syria and Ukraine.
“With TPS, I could get a job outside of cleaning … and more than anything, improve my life.” Evelyn said.
Evelyn asked the Reformer not to publish her last name for fear of revealing her immigration status.
While both political parties in Washington are consumed with stopping the flow of people crossing the border, Evelyn and other Ecuadorians say they just want a chance for a decent life for their families, which can’t be had in their home countries given such instability, violence and poverty.
U.S. immigration authorities can designate a country for TPS if conditions in that country are so dangerous that U.S. authorities cannot safely deport its citizens. A bill introduced in February in the U.S. House by New York Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Adriano Espaillat would grant TPS status to Ecuador.
Rep. Ilhan Oman, D-Minnesota, is a coauthor of the bill.
Everyday Ecuadorians have faced increasing extortion by criminal organizations, street violence, school closures, an economic downturn and a lack of access to basics like food and clean water. Many are fleeing to other countries, including the U.S., often crossing the treacherous Colombian jungle region known as the Darien Gap before traveling through Central America and Mexico to reach the U.S. border.
In Hennepin County, more than one-third of people in homeless shelters were from Ecuador, the Star Tribune reported in October.
Saturday afternoon, around a dozen Ecuadorian immigrants gathered in a meeting space owned by COPAL — which organizes Latinos to work on Minnesota labor and political issues — for the fourth meeting of the “TPS collective.”
Evelyn told the group about a conversation she had with Omar, who expressed support for Ecuadorians’ TPS cause. The TPS collective plans to bring in lawyers to answer members’ immigration law questions, share their stories with lawmakers and coordinate efforts with other similar groups around the country.
Most members are asylum seekers who turned themselves in to immigration authorities at the U.S. border, then were released while they await hearings, said Francisco Segovia, COPAL’s executive director.
Asylum seekers can legally live and work in the U.S. while they await their court dates — which are typically years away — but they can’t receive a work permit until they have been in the U.S. for six months.
The TPS collective agreed to share leads on jobs and affordable rentals with each other. COPAL leaders brought food for the meeting and fresh vegetables for those in need.
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