Statement: Liberal Action Condemns Senator for Torpedoing Relief for Hong Kong Refugees

Cowardly maneuver by Ted Cruz upends hope for Hong Kong dissidents at risk of deportation

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has unilaterally sabotaged a highly promising bill in Congress that would have provided much-needed security from deportation to Hong Kong refugees in U.S. territory.

The bill, known as the Hong Kong People's Freedom and Choice Act, would have extended a form of provisional relief known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Hong Kong residents currently living in the United States (whether on student visas or other forms of status). If allowed to go into effect, the bill would have shielded Hong Kong residents from being deported back to Chinese jurisdiction in the event their current visas expire.

Providing this form of relief to people facing potential retaliation at the hands of an authoritarian state should have been an easy choice for members of both major parties—particularly since many conservative politicians, while broadly hostile to the TPS program, have voiced strong opposition to the People's Republic of China's (PRC) current policy in Hong Kong (specifically the enactment of its recent national security law that abrogates the partial independence of the city's special administrative region and places many dissidents at risk).

In light of these considerations, the bill enjoyed strong bipartisan support in the House, and the Senate therefore took it up for consideration under a fast-track form of lawmaking known as unanimous consent.

Under this procedure, a bill can be stalled if even a single senator objects to it becoming law. Thus, by opposing the bill, Ted Cruz unilaterally terminated hopes for a swift passage during the current rapidly-expiring session of Congress. Because of Cruz's lone action, the bill will likely have to be tabled for a new session of Congress, and any Hong Kong residents living in the United States whose status expires in the meantime may face deportation to a country where they could be arrested or persecuted for their political opinions.

This cruel and short-sighted decision is not the first time in the recent past that right-wing U.S. politicians have placed an anti-immigrant agenda ahead of their own professed foreign policy goals. Earlier this year, conservative senators also refused to approve a House-passed law that would have granted TPS to Venezuelans living in the United States (who have similarly fled persecution at the hands of an authoritarian adversary).

Sadly, Cruz's action is also not the first time that conservatives in the Senate have invoked racist, anti-Asian sentiments to kill immigration legislation. (See Liberal Action's earlier statement in response to another recent example.)

The most recent TPS bill was introduced as part of a bipartisan response to the escalating human rights crisis in Hong Kong. Politicians from both major parties have rightly expressed concern and outrage at the broad crackdown on civil liberties taking place in the quasi-independent city—a course of action that has blatantly violated the PRC's long-standing "one country, two systems" agreement with respect to Hong Kong's political autonomy.

Ted Cruz is among the many politicians who have vehemently condemned these developments, but his action denying relief to the victims of the same PRC crackdown indicates his rhetoric is largely grandstanding.

Worse still, Cruz's chief argument against the bill relied on racist tropes. In speaking against its passage, the senator falsely alleged that the TPS bill could serve as an avenue for PRC spies to infiltrate the United States. (This is grossly misleading: in order to qualify for TPS, an immigrant must be deemed otherwise "admissible" to the United States, which requires a screening on national security grounds.)

This so-called "Trojan Horse" argument is an old and baseless canard that has been used for decades to dash the hopes of refugees seeking humanitarian protection in the United States. In the 1930s, a similar argument was used to defeat a bill that would have saved the lives of thousands of Jewish children who later perished in the Holocaust. More recently, far-right U.S. politicians promoted a similar falsehood that ISIS might use the U.S. refugee program to smuggle terrorists into the country.

Such baseless claims ignore the extensive security vetting procedures already built into U.S. law, including in the TPS and refugee programs. These arguments are not based on facts, but on cowardice, racist sterotypes, and a xenophobic suspicion of the "other." These are not the forces that should guide U.S. policy into the future.

Liberal Action calls on members of Congress to grant protection to refugees from all countries currently experiencing humanitarian and political crises. We also call on the incoming Biden administration to use their authority to provide TPS and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) to nationals from these countries as well, including but not limited to the Hong Kong residents whose chance for protection has been canceled for now by Ted Cruz' senseless course of action.

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