My college roommate sent this to me this morning, and I wanted to pass it on.

I know a lot of the focus right now in terms of the Haiti earthquake situation is on the humanitarian situation within the country, but there’s an additional element that I want to put on your radar screens: we (meaning law dorks like me and my law school classmates, particularly those of us with an interest in immigration law) are trying to get as many people as possible to call their members of Congress and ask that Temporary Protected Status (TPS) be enacted for Haitian nationals currently in the US. This would provide temporary immigration relief to help keep Haitians currently in deportation proceedings from being sent back, as well as allowing some temporary work authorizations. There’s a good article here. Information on how to contact your Congresspeople may be found here.

Obviously, please forward widely.

As for the humanitarian effort within Haiti, the Daily Kos put together an excellent link collection for charities funding disaster relief, and Heidi created the Help Haiti LJ comm, where fandom creatives are auctioning off fic, art, and more for donations.

The State Department has set up another cellphone donation link: Text “HAITI” to 90999 and you will be charged for a $10 donation to relief efforts. (Hat tip to Rachel Maddow, the White House twitterfeed, and Heidi Tandy)