Haiti
is not an abstraction. Haiti is a nation
whose pain has too often
been treated as policy collateral, a people
whose labor is welcomed
when needed and whose lives are discounted
when convenient. Now, with
the Supreme Court allowing the Trump
administration to terminate
Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and
Syrians, more than
350,000 Haitians who have lived and worked
legally in the United
States face the possibility of deportation
to a country the world
knows is in crisis.
Temporary
Protected Status is not a gift. It is a
recognition of reality. It
says that when a country is overwhelmed by
violence, disaster,
political collapse, or humanitarian
emergency, deportation is not
simply enforcement. It is endangerment. To
strip Haitians of this
protection now is to pretend that paperwork
matters more than human
life.
Haiti
is facing one of the world’s most severe
humanitarian crises. Armed
groups control much of the country, violence
has disrupted ordinary
life, hunger is widespread, and humanitarian
assistance remains far
short of the need.
So
what kind of country sends people back into
that? What kind of
country says to people who have built lives,
paid taxes, raised
children, staffed hospitals, opened
businesses, cared for elders,
cleaned rooms, cooked meals, driven trucks,
and strengthened
communities: your labor was welcome, but
your life is disposable?
Cruelty
is not an accidental byproduct of this
policy. Cruelty is the point.
Haitians
have long been punished for being Black,
free, defiant, and
inconvenient. The first Black republic in
the world was born of
revolt against slavery, and the nations that
profited from slavery
never forgave Haiti for proving that
enslaved people could liberate
themselves. France extracted a ruinous
indemnity. The United States
occupied Haiti. International lenders,
foreign governments, and
domestic elites have repeatedly treated
Haiti as a problem to manage,
not a sovereign nation to respect; a profit
center, not a proud and
sovereign nation. The present crisis cannot
be separated from that
long history of extraction, intervention,
and contempt.
Now
that contempt appears in the sterile
language of immigration law.
“Temporary” becomes the excuse. “Protected”
becomes the
promise broken. “Status” becomes the thin
legal thread holding
families together.
The
Supreme Court’s ruling did not create the
hatred of Haitian
migrants, but it gives official permission
to act on it. We have seen
the ugliness before. Haitians have been
accused of disease,
criminality, dependency, and disorder. They
have been stereotyped,
detained, deported, and scapegoated. During
the 2024 campaign,
Springfield, Ohio became a national symbol
of anti-Haitian hysteria
after false claims about Haitians eating
pets were amplified for
political gain. That lie was not just
ridiculous; it was dangerous.
It turned neighbors into targets.
Springfield
tells another story. Haitians came there to
work. They filled jobs.
They opened businesses. They joined
churches. They enrolled children
in schools. They helped revive a struggling
city. After the Court’s
ruling, many now face fear and uncertainty.
Even Ohio Governor Mike
DeWine, a Republican, reportedly called
ending Haitian TPS a mistake,
pointing to the conditions in Haiti.
That
matters. Because the question is not whether
Haitians belong in
Springfield, or Boston, or Miami, or New
York, or Washington, D.C.
The question is whether the United States
will acknowledge that
Haitians already belong here because they
are already here, already
contributing, already woven into the fabric
of our communities.
The
numbers tell part of the story, and they are
overwhelming. But they
do not tell the whole story. Behind every
number is a family deciding
whether to pack, hide, fight, or pray.
Behind every number is a child
who may know no home but the United States.
Behind every number is an
employer wondering who will show up for
work, a landlord wondering
whether a tenant can stay, a congregation
wondering whether its
members will disappear. Behind every number
is a disabled elder
wondering whether the care attendant will
come to bathe her, feed
her, and help her live with dignity.
TPS
holders are often described as if they are
temporary people. They are
not. They are people with temporary legal
protection, many of whom
have been here for years or decades because
the conditions that
displaced them have not been resolved.
Temporary status can become a
permanent limbo. It allows people to work
but not fully settle, to
contribute but not fully belong, to live
under the shadow of a
government decision that can turn a lawful
worker into a deportable
person.
That
shadow is now darker.
We
should be honest about what this is. It is
not simply immigration
enforcement. It is not simply administrative
discretion. It is a
choice to make vulnerable people more
vulnerable. It is a choice to
destabilize families and communities. It is
a choice to ignore
Haiti’s suffering while benefiting from
Haitian labor. It is a
choice to act as if Black migrant lives are
expendable.
The
United States has legal power. That has
never been in doubt. The
deeper question is whether it has moral
sense. Haiti has been
punished for its freedom, exploited for its
labor, burdened by debt,
occupied, stereotyped, and scapegoated.
Sending Haitians back into
danger continues that long, ugly pattern.
But
cruelty does not have to have the last word.
Congress can act. The
administration can halt deportations.
Communities can protect their
neighbors. Churches, unions, employers,
advocates, and people of
conscience can refuse to let Haitian
families disappear quietly into
deportation machinery. At minimum, this
country should extend TPS,
halt deportations to Haiti, and create a
path to permanence for
people who have already built their lives
here. The opposite of
cruelty is not sentiment. It is solidarity,
organized and insistent.
A
humane nation would not send people back
into danger. A just nation
would repair some small part of the damage
it has helped create. A
grateful nation would recognize Haitian
workers, families,
caregivers, students, entrepreneurs, and
neighbors as part of its own
story.
Cruelty
may be the point of this policy. Resistance
must be the point of our
response.
