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While much of the media’s focus around Immigrations and Customs Enforcement raids and deportations has been on our current government’s obsession with ridding this country of Latinos, it’s important to remember that the Haitian community continues to to be one of the most vilified groups. Many of these community members are Black and here under Temporary Protected Status. By now we are all aware of how a certain orange person in DC feels about Black folks.
On June 27, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a press release titled “DHS Terminates Haiti TPS, Encourages Haitians to Obtain Lawful Status”:
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem today announced the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haiti. The TPS designation for the country expires on Aug. 3, 2025, and the termination will be effective on Tuesday, September 2, 2025.
At least 60 days before a TPS designation expires, the Secretary, after consultation with appropriate U.S. government agencies, is required to review the conditions in a country designated for TPS to determine whether the conditions supporting the designation continue to be met, and if so, how long to extend the designation.
“This decision restores integrity in our immigration system and ensures that Temporary Protective Status is actually temporary,” said a DHS spokesperson. “The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home. We encourage these individuals to take advantage of the Department’s resources in returning to Haiti, which can be arranged through the CBP Home app. Haitian nationals may pursue lawful status through other immigration benefit requests, if eligible.”
After conferring with interagency partners, Secretary Noem determined that conditions in Haiti no longer meet the TPS statutory requirements. The Secretary’s decision was based on a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services review of the conditions in Haiti and in consultation with the Department of State. The Secretary determined that, overall, country conditions have improved to the point where Haitians can return home in safety. She further determined that permitting Haitian nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to the national interest of the United States. Haitian nationals returning home are encouraged to use the U.S. Customs and Border Protection CBP Home app to report their departure from the United States.
The Miami Herald’s editorial board issued a strong op-ed on the status of Haitians titled “Birthright citizenship, sending Haitians back: America no longer for ‘huddled masses’”:
On Friday, America felt less American, with the U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing, for now, the end of birthright citizenship for children of visa holders and undocumented immigrants in some states, along with the Trump administration’s announcement it was ending protections for roughly 500,000 Haitians who will be at risk of returning to a country with no functioning government. America, it seems, is no longer the country that welcomes “your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” The Trump administration’s justification for ending Temporary Protection Status for Haiti flies in the face of reason. The Department of Homeland Security wrote: “The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home,” the Miami Herald reported.
Really?
This a country where armed gangs control up to 90% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and are spreading their ruthless power to neighboring areas. At least one in 10 Haitians has been displaced by deadly gang violence, according to the Herald. Nearly half the population faces acute hunger.
Haitian and immigrant advocate groups responded swiftly to the Trump administration’s latest xenophobic move.
The Herald’s Caribbean Correspondent Jacqueline Charles reported “Haitians file class-action lawsuit to stop Trump administration from ending TPS”:
A group of Haitians with Temporary Protected Status is challenging the Trump administration’s end of legal protections from deportation for nationals of Haiti.
The class-action lawsuit was filed by five beneficiaries of TPS on Wednesday in federal court in the District of Colombia. The suit argues that returning Haitians to a nation being overtaken by gangs puts them at risk, that the decision by Homeland Security Secretary Krisiti Noem to end the deportation protections for up to more than a half-million Haitians did not go through the review process required by Congress, and that the move was based on racial animus toward Haitians.
“The termination of Haiti’s TPS designation is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, not in accordance with law, in excess of statutory authority, without observance of procedure required by law, and contrary to constitutional rights because it was motivated by unlawful discriminatory animus,” the lawsuit said. During his 2024 presidential campaign, President Donald Trump made numerous statements demonstrating his discriminatory attitude against Haitians, the suit said, highlighting his false accusations about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating their American neighbors’ pets. The group is being represented by the same lawyers who filed another suit – and won – earlier this year after Noem announced a six-month roll-back of Haiti’s TPS
[…]“Haiti is a nation in chaos. Even Secretary Noem admits that. The decision to strip critical TPS protections despite the extraordinary conditions in Haiti is not just cruel, it’s also unlawful,” said Sejal Zota, legal director for Just Futures Law. “The administration cannot reverse-engineer the facts to justify its politically motivated decision to terminate.”
[…}In early July, a federal judge in New York ruled that Noem lacked the legal authority to reduce the time of Haitians’ TPS from 18 months to 12 months, and said the termination date for the current designation should remain Feb. 3, 2026. DHS finally relented but also argued that it disagreed with the judge’s ruling. Weeks earlier, the agency had also announced that once the designation ends, TPS for to a half million Haitians currently living in the United States would come to an end.
You can read more about the earlier New York ruling in “US federal judge blocks Trump administration’s early termination of Haiti migrants’ temporary legal status.”
Tessa Petit, the executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, was interviewed about the situation on WPLG’s program “This Week in South Florida”:
Here’s some info about the Florida Immigrant Coalition:
Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC) is a hub for a bold, agile, and strategic social movement to protect Florida immigrants
FLIC is a statewide coalition of 83 member organizations and over 100 allies, founded in 1998 and formally incorporated in 2004. We are led by our membership, including grassroots and community organizations, farmworkers, youth, advocates, lawyers, union members, and more.
Florida isn’t the only part of the U.S. where Haitians’ livelihoods and well-being are under threat. The Washington Post just filed this report from Maryland:
The Post’s article is titled “Haitians found stability in Maryland’s poultry plants. It’s now in jeopardy.”
SALISBURY, Md. — For nearly a decade, the Haitian flag day celebration has shut down Main Street in this changing Eastern Shore city. This May, however, the holiday was marked in a bland parking lot a few blocks away, and the crowd was smaller.
Quiet, too, on a recent afternoon, was a Haitian-owned grocery store, and a juice bar across the street with a Haitian flag in its window. Down the road, a truck driver pulled out of a Perdue Farms poultry processing plant, listening to a local Creole-language talk radio station as he headed south to pick up another load of live chickens.
The region’s poultry industry and the local economy that has flourished around it have been a lifeline to Haitian immigrants who have settled on the Eastern Shore. But the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration crackdown has left a cloud of anxiety over Salisbury, where many in a fast-growing Haitian community now worry that everything they’ve built will collapse if thousands in the area are deported or otherwise forced to leave.
“I have so much to lose,” said Michelle, a Haitian poultry worker who spent more than a decade at Perdue’s Salisbury plant and spoke on the condition that only her first name be used out of fear of drawing the attention of immigration officials. “And I have nowhere else to go.”
I’m hoping that readers here will support the efforts of organizations like the Haitian Bridge Alliance by spreading the word. At the time I wrote this, they had only 360 followers on Bluesky, and 829 on X.
Here’s more about The Haitian Bridge Alliance from their website:
The Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) also known as “The BRIDGE” is a 501(c)(3) grassroots nonprofit community organization that advocates for fair and humane immigration policies and provides migrants and immigrants with humanitarian, legal, and social services, with a particular focus on Black people, the Haitian community, women and girls, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and survivors of torture and other human rights abuses.
We focus on the issues unique to Black migrants and build solidarity and collective movement toward policy change. We work closely with Black migrant communities throughout the United States, progressive coalitions fighting anti-Blackness and advocate locally, nationally, and internationally for fair and just immigration policies. We’re working to end racist border policies like the Remain in Mexico Policy, Title 42, and the border-to-prison-and-deportation pipeline.
We advocate for the expansion of TPS protections for more communities, DACA, and an overhaul of the asylum system that centers dignity and compassion — not cruelty. Since 2016, HBA has regularly brought delegations of lawyers, doctors, and other volunteers to the San Diego-Tijuana border to provide humanitarian relief to Haitian and other Black migrants from Africa. We also work with Haitian migrants in Tapachula, Mexico, and were the first organization on the ground during the Del Rio emergency.
We aim to transform the perception of the border from the misguided stereotype that it only impacts a certain set of people to a trans-American, global space that includes Black people—because immigration is a Black issue.
The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) is a U.S.-based human rights non-profit organization. Established in 2004, it is a partnership of human rights advocates in Haiti and the U.S., dedicated to tackling the root causes of injustice that impacts basic human rights in Haiti. In partnership with our Haiti-based sister organization, the law firm Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), we advocate, litigate, build constituencies, and nurture networks to create systemic pathways to justice for marginalized communities in Haiti.
[…]Founded in 1995, BAI has worked for over two decades in constitutional and international human rights law, grassroots solidarity, and building networks and movements to advance justice and protection of human rights in Haiti. In 2004, Brian Concannon, who co-led the BAI team with Mario Joseph, established IJDH as a U.S-based solidarity organization and partnership of human rights advocates in Haiti and the U.S.
Please join me in the comments section below for my weekly Caribbean News Roundup, and I hope you’ll post information on groups you know or work with who are supporting our Haitian, Caribbean, and immigrant communities.
