San Francisco, April 29 (RHC-teleSUR) -- The Black Alliance for Just Immigration, BAJI, is calling on lawmakers to halt the mass deportation of Haitian and Somali immigrants living in the United States.

BAJI, a grassroots organization that mobilizes and empowers Black immigrant communities, has launched a campaign bringing attention to the precarious situation that immigrants from both nationalities face.

Re-designation of Temporary Protected Status, TPS, for Haitians residing in the United States is scheduled for May 23, 2017. If the protective status is not granted, some 50,000 Haitians will be stripped of their work authorization and prioritized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is also in the process of deporting over 4,000 Somalis residing in the country, Ahmed Isse Awad, Somalia’s U.S. ambassador, told the San Francisco Bay View. The Department of Homeland Security, which is tasked with providing information about mass deportations, has yet to release details about pending removals within the Somali community.

For BAJI activists, the deportations spell disaster for those fleeing precarious situations in their home countries.

“The pending deportation of Somali immigrants is a matter of ethics and morality,” Opal Tometi, executive director of BAJI, told the San Francisco Bay View.