End of federal protection threatens thousands of SWFL Haitians with deportation
The Rev. Jean Renaud Paul hadn’t heard the news before his cellphone buzzed with a text message late Monday night.
“Trump ended TPS,” the message read, referring to temporary protected status.
President Donald Trump and his administration nixed a federal program that allowed roughly 59,000 Haitians to settle in the U.S. after an earthquake devastated their country in 2010.
The decision demands that thousands of Haitians living in Southwest Florida with temporary protected status, including members of Paul’s Naples New Haitian Church of the Nazarene, return to Haiti by July 2019 or face deportation.
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Paul thought of the Haitian mother who came with her two kids to Collier County after the earthquake destroyed their home in Port-au-Prince. She arrived with no money, food or luggage.
Her oldest daughter, now in her 20s, has a young son born here as a U.S. citizen.
“They can deport the mother and father, but the son is an American citizen,” Paul said Tuesday. “It’s a disaster. They don’t care about the family. It’s like they can just take the family and tear it away.”
The end of TPS affects roughly 10,000 of the estimated 20,000 Haitians in Southwest Florida, said Beatrice Jacquet, president of the Haitian-American Democratic Club of Lee County.
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Since Haitian families moved here after the 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people and displaced 1 million, they have been working, buying land, starting businesses and having children.
Those families now face a choice. The parents could move their American children to Haiti. They could split up their families by leaving their kids here as they move back to Haiti. Or they can defy the law to live and work here as illegal immigrants, subject to deportation at any time.
“It's unnatural to think that you can just rip out a huge number of people by fiat,” said Sister Maureen Kelleher, a Catholic nun and longtime immigration lawyer with Legal Aid Service of Collier County.
U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., pleaded with Elaine Duke, acting secretary of Homeland Security, in a letter last week to keep TPS for Haitians living in the U.S.
"To this day, Haiti struggles to combat an outbreak of cholera introduced by United Nations relief workers following the earthquake," the Florida senators wrote.
"We owe it to the Haitian people to assist them in their efforts, especially as they begin to make limited progress. Haiti simply cannot absorb the premature return of 60,000 people at once.”
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The government of Haiti requested a full extension of the status.
U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz Balart, R-Fla., on Tuesday said on Twitter that it would be "detrimental" to force tens of thousands of Haitians to leave.
"These individuals are established, respected members of our communities who have made significant contributions, and I urge the administration to reconsider," said Diaz-Balart, of Miami.
In Immokalee, where 3,000 to 5,000 Haitians live, residents who have temporary protected status work in packing houses and tomato fields. In Naples, they fill service jobs at hotels and restaurants. Their children attend Collier County public schools.
Jean Casnel Paul, pastor of the Immokalee Church of the Nazarene, said eliminating temporary protected status would cause a major hit on agriculture in the area.
“(Haitians) are the most significant group working in the packinghouse and the field,” he said. “No white people are going to be in the field working.”
With bipartisan support in Florida, Stacy Martin, executive vice president with Lutheran Services Florida, is hopeful that lawmakers can arrange to keep Haitians in the country when their TPS expires.
"By any assessment, Haiti is not ready to handle more than 50,000 more people," Martin said. "It is unimaginable to have to unravel your life and head into the unknown."
U.S. Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla., said he is grateful a decision was made to extend TPS for Haitians to summer 2019.
"That gives us a new lease on life, a couple years to figure something out for these people," said Rooney, of Naples.
Rooney said he would like to see Congress study options, such as providing unlimited work permits for Haitians with TPS.
"I hope this gives us enough time to figure out a better way," Rooney said.