(LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA) - After more than two decades living, working, and building a family in the United States, Cesar Rodriguez feels his life is in limbo.

The Driver for the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach from El Salvador is one of more than 300,000 Immigrants at risk of losing their Temporary Legal Status in the U.S. after the Trump Administration scrapped the program for a handful of countries.

“I’m a Trucker and I ‘make my living with my license.’  ‘Without’ my license, ‘I lose my job,’” Rodriguez told In These Times. “If I ‘lose’ my job, I ‘would lose everything’ – ‘even my family, because I wouldn’t have a way to support them.’”

Rodriguez arrived in the United States in 1996.  After living undocumented for five years, the Government extended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Salvadorans when a devastating pair of earthquakes rocked their home country, giving Immigrants like Rodriguez protection from deportation and authorization to work.

Now, he’s worried about what the cancellation of the program will mean for him and his wife, also a TPS holder from El Salvador, and their three U.S.-born children.

“We’re ‘fighting so that they don’t take away’ our TPS,” he said. “I ‘don’t want to be separated from my children, from my family.’”

Rodriguez, part of a group of Port Drivers fighting for rights to join a Union, is relieved to have parts of the Labor Movement on his side.

Although he is not Unionized, he says he already feels like part of a Teamsters Local due to the Union’s support for Workers like him on two fronts: Labor Rights and Immigration justice.

The Teamsters is one of the Labor Unions taking a stand to protect TPS holders with the message that Immigrant Rights are Worker Rights.

Six Unions representing 3.5 million Workers have teamed up under the banner of Working Families United to join the campaign to save TPS and demand Congress take bipartisan action to allow TPS holders to stay in the country.

“The fight to save TPS for us ‘is very clear from both a Worker rights side and a Union side.’ ‘That’s what brought us together,’” said Neidi Dominguez, National Strategic Organizing Coordinator with the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), which is part of the Working Families United Coalition.

Not only would the cancellation of TPS directly impact scores of Union Members, but it would also strip Unions of Membership, Dominguez told In These Times.

This is especially true for the Construction and Food Service Industries, which, according to the Center for Migration Studies, respectively employ 51,700 and 32,400 recipients of TPS from El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti - the three countries whose Immigrants make up the vast majority of TPS holders.

Formed last year by IUPAT, the Bricklayers, Ironworkers, Unite Here and the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) - and later joined by the Teamsters - Working Families United aims to raise awareness about Immigrant justice and echo Immigrant Rights Groups in demanding U.S. lawmakers create a permanent solution to replace TPS.

“The ‘goal is to protect families from deportation,’” Bethany Khan, a spokesperson for the Culinary Union, a Nevada affiliate of the UNITE HERE Union and part of the Working Families United coalition, told In These Times. “It’s ‘about keeping families together, treating Workers with respect and dignity, educating people on TPS and DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), and elevating the profiles of these Workers.’”

To Continue Reading This Labor News Report, Go To: http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/21516/immigrants-rights-workers-teamsters-tps-working-families-united