Immigration advocates called on President Joe Biden Monday to end deportations to Haiti and offer a new Temporary Protected Status designation for Haiti, a move that would provide immigration protection to thousands of additional migrants already living in the United States from the troubled Caribbean nation.
Haiti, they said, is no longer safe enough for them to return.
"What's happening in Haiti right now, it is scary," said Marleine Bastien, executive director of the Family Action Network Movement advocacy group during a press conference. "This is a country under lock. This is unprecedented."
The United States provided Temporary Protected Status to Haitians after the country's devastating 2010 earthquake that left over 300,000 dead. The designation is provided to citizens from countries hit by war and natural disasters and allows them to legally stay and work in the U.S. It initially provided protection for an estimated 60,000 Haitians who were in the U.S. prior to July 23, 2011. The Trump administration tried to end TPS for Haitians and a legal battle continues in federal court.
The push comes as Haiti experiences a severe political, economic and humanitarian crisis, made worse by a rise in gang-driven violence, including a dramatic uptick in kidnappings. On Monday, the United Nations denounced the death of a police officer who was allegedly killed on the streets of the capital during a chaotic protest involving a rogue faction of the Haitian National Police known as Fantom 509, the latest in a spate of violence against those in uniform.
On the campaign trail, Biden promised to halt deportations of undocumented Haitians during his first 100 days in office and to immediately review the Trump administration's plans to terminate TPS. His promise of a moratorium was later blocked by a Texas federal judge and did not exempt expulsions under the controversial Trump-era policy known as Title 42. Imposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the health order allows for the expulsion of Haitian migrants and others seeking asylum without an immigration hearing. The new president is also grappling with a surge in migration at the border, in what has become one of the first major tests of his administration.
TPS benefits for Haitians are currently authorized through Oct. 4, 2021.
"There are extraordinary conditions existing that make it unsafe to deport someone," said Steve Forester, a Haitian immigration advocate with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, a human rights organization based in Boston and with an affiliate in Haiti. "Frankly it is unconscionable and unfathomable that President Biden should be leading massive, wholesale deportations of hundreds of people to Haiti."
Providing a new TPS designation for Haiti would both protect those who already benefit from the order while also extending the right to thousands of undocumented Haitians who have arrived in the U.S. in the years after the earthquake and are at risk of being deported, said Ira Kurzban, an immigration attorney involved in one of the TPS lawsuits filed in New York federal court.
In that suit, a judge ruled against the Trump administration and in favor of allowing Haitians to continue to receive the benefits of TPS. He also issued a temporary injunction against their removal. But the Trump administration appealed to the Second Court of Appeals in New York and the case is ongoing.
"That injunction is still in effect," Kurzban said. "But the court has entered a stay pending a determination by the [Biden] administration."
Kurzban said the administration, which recently granted TPS for Venezuelans, has three options in the case of Haiti: Fight the lawsuit and allow it to go all the way to the Supreme Court, continue offering TPS benefits for those currently covered, or re-designate Haiti to provide protections for a broader group of people, which would in effect recognize that Haiti is in the midst of a crisis that makes it unsafe for its citizens to return.
Forester, who has been tracking U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation flights to Haiti, said that since February, there have been at least 18 ICE charter flights returning no fewer than 1,200 expelled Haitians to Port-au-Prince. Most of those expulsions have been done under Title 42.
Last month, U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami, spearheaded a letter, signed by 61 House colleagues, to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, asking him to end Haitian deportations under Title 42. In a separate bipartisan letter, Senators Marco Rubio, R-Fla. and Bob Menendez, D-NJ, both asked for a TPS redesignation for Haiti. They noted the difficulties the deportations cause for Haiti's government, as well as United Nations projections that an estimated 4 million Haitians will need humanitarian assistance this year.
While calling for broader TPS privileges for Haiti to protect those who are currently undocumented, the advocates praised last week's passage of the Dream and Promise Act, which provides a pathway to citizenship for millions of migrants, including undocumented young immigrants known as Dreamers and migrant workers.
With the bill needing the support of at least 10 Republicans in the Senate, advocates called on Rubio and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., to support the legislation when it reaches the chamber, and urged voters to call senators to press for support.
