How to support Haitians fighting deportation from the US

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Although a large part of the attention of the media on raids and deportations of immigrants and customs has been on the obsession of our current government to rid this country of Latinos, it is important to remember that the Haitian community continues to be one of the most vilified groups. Many of these community members are black and here under temporary protected status. Now we all know how a certain orange person in DC feels for blacks.

On June 27, the American Department of Internal Security published a press release entitled “The DHS ends with Haiti TPS, encourages Haitians to obtain legal status“:

Internal security secretary, Kristi Noem, announced today the cessation of temporary protected status for Haiti. The designation of the TPS for the country expires on August 3, 2025 and the termination will be in force on Tuesday September 2, 2025.

At least 60 days before the expiration of a TPS designation, the secretary, after consultation with the appropriate American government agencies, is required to review the conditions in a country designated for the TPS in order to determine whether the conditions of support for the designation continue to be met and, if, how long to extend the designation.

“This decision restores integrity into our immigration system and guarantees that the temporary protection status is really temporary”, “ says one DHS spokesperson. “”The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough to be sure for Haitian citizens to return home. We encourage these people to take advantage of the department’s resources to return to Haiti, which can be organized via the Home CBP application. Haitian nationals can pursue legal status thanks to other requests for immigration benefits, if they are eligible. »»

After having conferred on inter -listings, secretary Noem determined that the conditions in Haiti no longer meet the legal requirements of the TPS. The secretary’s decision was based on an examination of services in the United States and the immigration services of conditions in Haiti and in consultation with the State Department. The secretary determined that, overall, the country’s conditions have improved to the point where Haitians can return home safely. She also determined that allowing him to stay in Haitian to stay temporarily in the United States is contrary to the national interest of the United States. Haitian nationals who return home are encouraged to use the US Customs and Border Protection CBP Home application to report their departure from the United States.

The editorial committee of Miami Herald published a strong editorial on the status of Haitians entitled “Citizenship of the right of birth, referring Haitians: America is no longer for the “huddles masses” “:

Friday, America felt less American, the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States allowing, for the moment, the end of the citizenship of the birth law of the children’s holders and undocumented immigrants in certain states, as well as the announcement of the Trump administration, it would end the protections for around 500,000 Haitians who risk returning to a country without government. America, it seems, is no longer the country that welcomes “your fatigue, your poor, your masses huddles aspires to breathe for free”. The justification for the Trump administration to end the temporary protection status for Haiti flies in the face of reason. The Ministry of Internal Security wrote: “The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough to be sure for Haitian citizens to return home,” said Miami Herald.

Really?

It is a country where armed gangs control up to 90% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and broadcast their ruthless power to neighboring areas. According to the Herald, at least one in 10 Haitians was moved by the deadly violence of the gangs. Almost half of the population faces acute hunger.

Haitian and immigrant groups of Haitian defenders quickly responded to the last xenophobic movement in the Trump administration.

Herald’s Caribbean correspondent Jacqueline Charles, reported “The Haitians file an in progress to prevent Trump’s administration from putting an end to the TP“:

A group of Haitians with temporary protected status questions the end of the Trump administration’s legal protections against deportation for nationals of Haiti.

Wednesday, the collective appeal was brought by five TPS beneficiaries in the Federal Court of the District of Colombia. The trial argues that the return of Haitians to a nation overwhelmed by the gangs endangers them, that the decision of the interior security secretary, Krisiti Noem, put an end to the deportation protections up to more than half a million Haitians who did not follow the examination process required by the Congress, and that the decision was based on the racial animus to Haitians.

“The cessation of the appointment of TPS in Haiti is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretionary power, not in accordance with the law, beyond the statutory authority, without respect for the procedure required by law, and contrary to constitutional rights because it was motivated by an illegal discriminatory animus”, according to the prosecution. During his presidential campaign in 2024, President Donald Trump made many statements demonstrating his discriminatory attitude against Haitians, said the trial, highlighting his false accusations about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, ate pets from their American neighbors. The group is represented by the same lawyers who filed another pursuit – and won – earlier this year after Noem announced a six -month decline in Haiti TPS

[…]

“Haiti is a nation in chaos. Even secretary Noem admits that the decision to go beyond critical TPS protections despite the extraordinary conditions in Haiti is not only cruel, it is also illegal,” said Sejal Zota, legal director of Just Futures Law. “The administration cannot reverse the facts to justify its politically reasoned decision to end.”

[…}

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.