{"id":296351,"date":"2025-06-02T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T11:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=296351"},"modified":"2025-05-29T05:04:17","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T04:04:17","slug":"trumps-utterly-cruel-and-inhuman-immigration-policy-targetting-haitians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/06\/trumps-utterly-cruel-and-inhuman-immigration-policy-targetting-haitians\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s Utterly Cruel and Inhuman Immigration Policy Targetting Haitians"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

May 2025\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0The United States government is threatening mass deportations of Haitians enrolled in two programs \u2013 Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and the Haitian Family Reunification Parole (HFRP) Program. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) allows foreign nationals from designated countries to live and work in the US temporarily due to unsafe conditions in their home countries \u2013 like ongoing armed conflict or an environmental disaster \u2013 that would prevent them from returning home safely. In 2010, Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of Homeland Security, granted TPS to Haitians after the disastrous earthquake that killed more than 300,000 people and devastated Haiti\u2019s capital, Port-au-Prince and the surrounding area. This was followed by Hurricane Mathew in 2016, and the 7.2 earthquake which devastated Haiti\u2019s southern peninsula in 2021. However, TPS does not provide a pathway to permanent residency. As of September 23, 2024, the US provided <\/span>TPS protections to about 863,880\u00a0individuals from 16 countries<\/span>, including Haiti<\/a>. Instead of residency, the TPS allows beneficiaries to live and in some cases work in the United States for a limited amount of time \u2013 usually 6, 12 or 18 months \u2013 after which it must be renewed, or it can be cancelled.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Trump\u2019s attacks on Haitians follow in the footsteps of the Biden administration\u2019s deportation of 25,000 Haitians, the most by any administration. It was during Biden\u2019s presidency that border patrol agents in Texas were caught on camera whipping Haitians in scenes reminiscent of slavery. But under pressure from immigration activists, Biden renewed TPS for Haitian migrants for 18 months on July 1, 2024. On Feb. 20, 2025, Trump\u2019s Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem partially vacated that notice and changed the extension period to one year \u2013 meaning that Haitian TPS holders who have been living, working, raising families with American\u2013<\/span>born children, and paying taxes could be deported starting on August 3, 2025. There are currently approximately 200,000 Haitian TPS holders<\/a><\/span> at risk of deportation. Since many of their children were born in this country and have birthright citizenship, the party of \u201cfamily values\u201d is threatening the devastating separation of many of these families, as well as attempting to cancel the constitutional right to birthright citizenship granted to all people born in the United States.<\/p>\n

In addition to TPS, a second program for refugee protection is called the Haitian Family Reunification Parole (HFRP) Program, which was established in 2014 to allow certain eligible US citizens and lawful permanent residents to apply for \u201cparole\u201d for their family members in Haiti. If granted parole, these family members could come to the United States and apply for discretionary work authorization while they wait to apply for Lawful Permanent Resident status. An estimated 211,040 Haitians<\/a><\/span> are currently in the country under this program. On March 25, 2025, DHS Secretary Noem terminated this program for Haitians, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, leaving hundreds of thousands of workers without the basic workplace protections that having a work permit provides\u2014and they will become deportable if they have not already departed the United States \u201cvoluntarily.\u201d<\/p>\n

The DHS Secretary has the authority to extend TPS after a review of country conditions and to maintain the Haitian Family Reunification Parole (HFRP) Program. The key here is the review of country conditions. As noted above, TPS was created to protect people from having to return to unsafe conditions in their home countries.<\/p>\n

Since the US-orchestrated 2004 coup against the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the most progressive in Haiti\u2019s history, US-backed right-wing governments and elites in Haiti have empowered armed paramilitaries to attack opposition neighborhoods and facilitate drug and arms tra\ufb03cking while wreaking havoc on civil society. These paramilitaries support themselves by looting as they burn houses, gang rape women, and terrorize whole communities \u2013 particularly in neighborhoods supportive of former Aristide\u2019s Lavalas Party. They have created what Haitians call a \u201chell on earth,\u201d and they now dominate 85-90% of Port-au- Prince armed with weapons that flow in illegally \u2013 mainly from South Florida.<\/p>\n

The death squads control all roads in and out of Port-au-Prince, extracting bribes to pass through and creating mass shortages of basic supplies. More than 5,000 people have been killed in the last year and hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes. The death squads have attacked schools and hospitals \u2013 any institution that benefits civil society. There is not one elected o\ufb03cial in the country. There is no functioning government and there are no services. And this is the situation that Donald Trump and Kristi Noem want to force hundreds of thousands of people to return to. Elon Musk has said \u201cThe fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.\u201d There is certainly no empathy for Haiti, and there are no words to describe the depth of the cruelty of this policy and this administration.<\/p>\n

Currently, efforts to stop both deportation campaigns are in the courts, but the law gives the Secretary of Homeland Security authority to end both programs. So the deportations may well be upheld once they reach the appellate level. Haiti Action Committee demands the <\/strong>government stop these deportation threats. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

For justice to be done, Haitians must be able to return to a country freed from the violence imposed by decades of US-backed anti- democratic rule. Haitians who choose to remain in the United States should be granted the legal permanent residency they have earned. Please stay tuned and support all efforts to block these heartless deportations.<\/span><\/p>\n

__________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Charlie Hinton is a member of Haiti Action Committee and the Drop LWOP Coalition. He is the author of the play <\/em>Solitary Man: A Visit to Pelican Bay State Prison and a book of collected writings, <\/em>Life Wish.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – haitisolidarity.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For justice to be done, Haitians must be able to return to a country freed from the violence imposed by decades of US-backed anti-democratic rule. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":189440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[550,975,976,1126,1050,541,70],"class_list":["post-296351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","tag-corruption","tag-haiti","tag-haiti-action-committee","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296351"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":296355,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296351\/revisions\/296355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}