Washington, D.C. - November 24, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke announced her decision to terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Haiti with a delayed effective date of 18 months to allow for an orderly transition before the designation terminates on July 22, 2019. This decision follows then-Secretary Kelly’s announcement in May 2017 that Haiti had made considerable progress, and that the country’s designation will likely not be extended past six months.
The decision to terminate TPS for Haiti was made after a review of the conditions upon which the country’s original designation were based and whether those extraordinary but temporary conditions prevented Haiti from adequately handling the return of their nationals, as required by statute. Based on all available information, including recommendations received as part of an inter-agency consultation process, Acting Secretary Duke determined that those extraordinary but temporary conditions caused by the 2010 earthquake no longer exist. Thus, under the applicable statute, the current TPS designation must be terminated.
Acting Secretary Duke met with Haitian Foreign Minister Antonio Rodrigue and Haitian Ambassador to the United States Paul Altidor recently in Washington to discuss the issue.
In 2017 alone, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services conducted extensive outreach to the Haitian communities throughout the country. These include but are not limited to community forums on TPS, panel discussions with Haitian community organizers, stakeholder teleconferences, regular meetings with TPS beneficiaries, news releases to the Haitian community, meetings with Haitian government officials, meetings at local churches, and listening sessions.
Since the 2010 earthquake, the number of displaced people in Haiti has decreased by 97 percent. Significant steps have been taken to improve the stability and quality of life for Haitian citizens, and Haiti is able to safely receive traditional levels of returned citizens. Haiti has also demonstrated a commitment to adequately prepare for when the country’s TPS designation is terminated.
In May 2017, then-Secretary Kelly announced a limited extension for Haiti’s TPS designation, stating that he believed there were indications that Haiti – if its recovery from the 2010 earthquake continued at pace – may not warrant further TPS extension past January 2018. At the time, then-Secretary Kelly stated that his six-month extension should give Haitian TPS recipients living in the United States time to attain travel documents and make other necessary arrangements for their ultimate departure from the United States, and should also provide the Haitian government with the time it needs to prepare for the future repatriation of all current TPS recipients.
To allow for an orderly transition, the effective date of the termination of TPS for Haiti will be delayed 18 months. This will provide time for individuals with TPS to arrange for their departure or to seek an alternative lawful immigration status in the United States, if eligible. It will also provide time for Haiti to prepare for the return and reintegration of their citizens. During this timeframe, USCIS will work with the State Department, other DHS components and the Government of Haiti to help educate relevant stakeholders and facilitate an orderly transition.
Haitians with TPS will be required to reapply for Employment Authorization Documents in order to legally work in the United States until the end of the respective termination or extension periods. Further details about this termination for TPS will appear in a Federal Register notice.
Of course, everyone who wants to bash Trump for anything at all has latched on this as a Hot Topic.
NEA President Lily Eskelsen García was outraged at the Trump administration’s decision citing that they had "fled multiple natural disasters and a cholera epidemic". She stated, "“Cruel and spiteful are the only words to describe what the Trump administration plans to do to Haitian families, including thousands of our students, in yet another instance on the long list of proposals targeting communities of color that have emerged from this White House. As we prepare to give thanks in the tradition of those who came to our county seeking opportunity and prosperity, Donald Trump has chosen to celebrate by evicting thousands of families who have no place to go with their home country still in humanitarian crisis. Congress must act to provide a permanent solution for Haitians and other TPS holders by passing one of the numerous existing bills that enjoy bipartisan support and would provide stability for these families.”
The NEA holds that forcing the return of Haitian TPS recipients would disrupt the fragile recovery in Haiti, exacerbate the food, housing, and public health crises, and potentially destabilize the new Government. In fact, it is not the country of Haiti that is fragile, but rather the people in it. Only a strong people will be able to rebuild and return to normalcy in their own land. Just look at what happened in Texas not to long ago for verification of that.
“Deciding to end TPS for Haiti is heartless and inhumane. This decision will rip apart families who have been living in the United States for almost a decade, sending them back to a country that is still facing a humanitarian crisis and is unable to provide safe refuge for deportees. It is simply unacceptable that the United States will be unnecessarily sending Haitians to live in treacherous conditions. We are turning our backs on our country’s proud legacy of being a beacon of hope for the vulnerable,” said Lia Lindsey, Oxfam America’s Senior Humanitarian Policy Advisor.
In Haiti, there are still 38,000 people internally displaced by the 2010 earthquake and cholera remains a severe problem, with nearly 11,000 new cases and 100 deaths this year alone. Hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition impacts millions of Haitian families across the country; meanwhile hurricanes earlier this year caused damage to crops and livestock. “These ongoing humanitarian issues are examples of conditions that make forced return of thousands of people untenable and cruel,” continued Ms. Lindsey. She does not take into account the hundreds of thousands who were displaced in our own country due to the same hurricanes. The Ponder holds that we cannot possibly continue to support other countries until we get our own taken care of. That would be like trying to save a drowning man without a life-jacket in a current.
Michelle Brané, Director of the Migrant Rights and Justice program at Women's Refugee Commission made the following statement:
“Women’s Refugee Commission strongly condemns the Trump administration’s decision to terminate the Temporary Protected Status program for the 50,000 Haitians living here in the U.S. Haitians with TPS in America are working in critical industries, buying homes, and raising families that include thousands of U.S. citizen children. We know all too well the effects that a parent’s deportation has on children, whether they are left behind or join their parents in a country they have never known. The decision to end TPS for these countries will devastate communities and could spell setbacks for children that will have a ripple effect on school systems, healthcare, and social services across the U.S. as children are left without primary caregivers and at risk of becoming involved with the U.S. foster care system. This is another example of the cruel and unusual punishment the Trump administration is heaping on to mixed-status families.”
Our question is this: What responsible family would go to another country where they are NOT a citizen and buy a home, taking on years of payments on property they KNOW they cannot keep because temporary means TEMPORARY.
Senator Robert Menendez (D - NJ) shot out that "This decision will not only have a seriously destabilizing effect and impair Haiti’s fragile recovery efforts, but it further harms our ability to be an effective leader on the global stage by demonizing people from different countries. But faced by a lack of ‘bad hombres’, the Trump administration is shamelessly creating deportable immigrants out of thin air and tearing apart American families - specifically 27,000 US citizen children who have TPS parents."
Blaming Trump for the Haitian situation doesn't make sense, and -- of course -- throwing children in front of us that should never have been born here to begin with (had the Haitians shown any sense of intelligent responsibility) is not productive in helping their situation.
Perhaps one of the conditions for their status should have been that any immigrant that has not yet become naturalized should not be allowed to have children until they do. This is not cruel, when you weigh in the fact that returning home is a BIG possibility until such naturalization occurs.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D - MA) has sided with Menendez on the issue, as has House Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA 13th), who said “As a former member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations, I have fought for years to help Haiti and our Caribbean neighbors in their efforts to recover and rebuild as climate-resilient nations. Congress must act by immediately by passing bipartisan comprehensive TPS legislation that would provide meaningful relief to Haiti and other countries in similar situations.”
Providing relief to Haiti and taking in their citizens and allowing them to deplete our resources when they are not in immediate danger any more are two different things.
