Rep. McCollum: End of protected status for Myanmar could affect a thousand Minnesotans
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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced last week that the United States will end temporary protected status for migrants from Myanmar in January.
Minnesota is home to about 22,000 people from Myanmar. Most arrived as refugees in the early and mid-2000s and would be unaffected by the policy change.
Those affected typically would have come to the U.S. as students or visitors and overstayed their visas because of military rule and civil war back home. Ending protected status means they could be deported.
That could include more than 1,000 Minnesotans, according to U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum. McCollum co-chairs the congressional Burma Caucus.
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Nationwide, about 3,600 people could be impacted.
The announcement followed one President Donald Trump made earlier on social media cancelling protected status for some Somalis in Minnesota. At the time of the interview, that change had not yet gone through the same homeland security process.
On Tuesday, Nov. 25, MPR News host Clay Masters spoke with McCollum about the changes, as well as the federal enforcement operation that took place that day in St. Paul.
The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity. Click the audio player above to listen to the conversation.
Before we talk about Myanmar, I want to first bring up the federal agent operation at a home in St. Paul. There was a heavy police presence, and an MPR journalist was injured. After the last federal operation in St. Paul, you sent a letter to the FBI director and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security asking for answers. Do you plan to do the same?
McCollum: Absolutely, I’d love to get some answers. I’m going to keep doing my job. I’m going to keep pushing and letting the people that I represent know I’m demanding answers on these activities. I’m sorry a journalist was hurt. And St. Paul police, they can best explain their own situation, but they were called in after one of the two people that they had a warrant for was fleeing — fleeing in a car — and then it became a St. Paul police job to stop someone from driving down the street erratically where people could have been injured.
And this is exactly what Trump wants to do, is he wants to pit communities against each other, and our police department does not, you know, willingly go out and participate in these raids, but when things happen where there could be a risk to the public … they're going to stop a high-speed chase and keep the public from being hurt. And some people in the public, it sounds like, misinterpreted what St. Paul police officers were doing at that time. So, a lot of confusion out there, but that’s exactly what Trump wants to do, create chaos and create division.
Let’s shift to your work on the Burma Caucus. Do you have an estimate for how many people in Minnesota will be affected?
McCollum: One number we were roughly looking at in the office gathering information … is about maybe 1,000 people could be impacted here in Minnesota. These are people who came over here as students, and then the civil war erupted and their family members were either being detained or murdered.
I’ve been to Myanmar and saw what they, the government, did to the Rohingya. Even in the refugee camp in Bangladesh, people were fearful for their lives, and so they applied for and received this protected status. And nothing’s changed in Burma to make it any safer to go. It has a Level 4 warning from the State Department, which means they strongly encourage and advise U.S. citizens not to go there because the country’s not safe.
In the order, Secretary Noem said the state of emergency in Myanmar has ended, and democratic elections are set to take place over the next two months. What would you need to see to feel comfortable sending people back?
McCollum: Well, I don’t know where she has been getting her information on free and fair elections, because the international community and the human rights community know that they are going to be anything but free or fair. The government has precluded, with passing laws, many of the minority populations from being able to vote, and they’ve been rounding up and jailing people that have been peacefully protesting.
I would really strongly disagree with Secretary Noem’s definition of what free and fair elections are. I know what they are and that's not what's going to happen in Burma or Myanmar (in the caucus, we use both names).
Thailand shares a border with Myanmar and has long been home to refugee camps for Karen people and other ethnic minorities from the country. Have you or will you be in touch with Thai officials about whether people can deport to Thailand?
McCollum: I haven’t. You know that’s something that’s usually not in my purview. That’s something that the State Department works on. You ask an interesting question, and you know, we will be reaching out as a caucus when we’re back next week to see what we can do.
But the thousands of Rohingya that are in Bangladesh right now live in a precarious situation. Since 2017, they just ran. There they were being burnt alive in their homes. Women fleeing with their children. Their infants were ripped out of their arms and thrown up into the air. The stories of what that military government does are horrific.
Do you see any recourse here?
McCollum: Well, we need to speak with one voice as Minnesotans, but also as citizens from the United States, that when people are here and they’re being productive in our communities — they’re not committing crimes, they’re contributing — we need to make sure that we offer them safe haven until they can return home.
In many cases, the reasons these people have not sought full asylum is because they want to go back home. When you get protective status, you’re planning on going back, but you need to go back where you know you won’t be murdered.
