A ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday affirmed President Donald Trump’s decision to end Temporary Protective Status for 1.3 million people in the U.S. from 17 countries, leaving Haitian communities in Norwich, New London and Bridgeport reeling from the news.
TPS provides protection for people fleeing armed conflict and environmental disaster. Haiti was first given the status after a devastating earthquake in 2010 that left more than 300,000 people dead and more than a million homeless. Many people with TPS have been living in the U.S. ever since, some brought as very young children.
Nationwide, about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians no longer have TPS. In Connecticut, Haitians will be most significantly impacted.
Maggie Mitchell Salem, the executive director of Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, said that there are about 5,000 Haitians in Connecticut with TPS. She said the U.S. should not be returning people to countries like Haiti and Syria where they will not be safe.
“We grieve for what people are going through right now,” she said.
“I know people who came here at 1 year old, and they are in their 30s now,” said Shineika Fareus, a recently elected city council member in New London who is Haitian-American. “Now they could be looking at deportation to back to a home they don’t know, because they grew up their whole life here.”
Credit: Sarah Gordon / CT Mirror
The country many will return to is racked by extreme gang violence and has one of the highest homicide rates in the world. The U.S. State Department has assigned Haiti a level 4 “do not travel” warning and tells Americans not to go to Haiti “due to the risk of crime, terrorism, kidnapping, unrest, and limited healthcare.” North Korea, Iran and South Sudan carry the same level of risk, according to the ratings.
Haitians moved to the New London-Norwich area to work at the Mohegan Sun Casino, Fareus said. Over time, many were joined by family members, some of whom survived the 2010 earthquake, others fleeing gang violence.
Fareus is one of the founders of the Haitian Hub Resource Center in New London, which was created to help Haitians connect with services available to them in their native Creole.
On Thursday, the Hub’s phone was ringing with frantic calls for assistance.
“It’s not just news for me,” Fareus said of the ruling. “For some people reading about it, it’s like, ‘Wow, that’s sad.’ But for me, I’m thinking of all the names coming up and names it’s tearing apart.”
Salem said that Haitians are supporting key industries such as healthcare and that the loss will also do harm to the communities where they live.
“And then there’s what these people are contributing to our communities. Turning them back is literally giving up a critical part of our workforce,” she said. “This is another way we are shooting ourselves in the foot and harming our own interests, in addition to harming other people. It’s horrific on so many levels.”
“Today’s decision is devastating for thousands of our neighbors who have lived and worked in our communities for years and just had the rug pulled out from under them,” said U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., in a press release. “Now that the Supreme Court has rubberstamped the racist policies of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, Congress must immediately act to give these families a pathway to a permanent immigration status.”
Enock Petit-Homme, a member of the Norwich City Council, said that Haitians were already scared by the Trump administration’s move to end TPS but had been waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision. He called Thursday “a sad moment” for his community.
“Haiti is a country in turmoil right now. Geopolitically, it’s not as safe as people think it is,” he said. “The island is being taken over by gangs and the political unrest in Haiti, and they can’t even flee to the Dominican Republican because they are being hunted and taken back to the border. They’re being treated like they are less than human beings.”
Salem of IRIS said that she is anticipating increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in the coming weeks.
“ICE has just been handed $70 billion,” she said. “Through TPS, they have new targets, and they will not hesitate.”
