New exodus looms for Haitian migrants in the United States

During his campaign, Donald Trump promised he would enact a mass deportation scheme – the largest in American history. He vowed that he would start with Haitians living in Springfield, Ohio. Last month, the Biden administration decided not to extend the humanitarian parole for migrants from Haiti (among other nationalities) who had already been admitted to the country through the parole program. Michael Wilner, a correspondent for McClatchy, suggested that this decision was made to give eligible Haitians to find other avenues to remain in the United States, notably Temporary Protected Status (TPS). In fact, with a Trump presidency, it is almost certain that the program will be completely halted, so looking for alternatives makes sense. However, in an interview with NewsNation back in early October, Trump said he would revoke TPS for Haitians and “bring them back to their country”. It would not be the first time Trump tried to revoke TPS. During his first term, Trump had announced the end of TPS, a decision that was ultimately blocked by a judge in New York. Would things be different this time?

Today, over 300,000 Haitians are TPS beneficiaries. Around 200,000 are beneficiaries of the humanitarian parole program. With both programs expected to be suspended by the Trump administration, over half a million Haitians could be in a legal limbo.

In my final project, I would like to investigate how the Haitian community and its allies are preparing for an end to these programs. I intend to interview Haitian families, beneficiaries of both TPS and humanitarian parole, sponsors of the beneficiaries, people in Haiti who are waiting for their cases to be processed and sponsors who are waiting for their families to come over.

I am also interested in how Canada is preparing for a mass Haitian exodus as happened when TPS first ended in 2017. Can we expect the same to happen this time around? I will try to talk to Haitians who moved to Canada during this period to understand how everything happened and what their experience has been like since.

I will also interview immigration lawyers, leaders of nonprofit and advocacy organizations connected to the Haitian community as well as government officials in Canada to see how they are preparing for a potential haitian migration.

Contacts
Ira Kurzban, the Miami immigration attorney who was among the lawyers who successfully argued the class-action lawsuit against the end of TPS back in 2017.
Marleine Bastien from Family Action Movement Network
Gene Hamilton – immigration lawyer supporting the end of TPS for Haitians
Colleen Desiree, Association of Haitian Women in Boston
Mireille Paquet, Associate Professor, Political Science mireille.paquet@concordia.ca
Marjorie Villefranche (director of Maison d’Haiti, a Haitian community organization in Montreal)
Haitian workers at Princeton, other connections who have TPS and connections in Canada.

Links
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-vows-mass-deportation-migrants-springfield-dismisses-threats/story?id=113661663
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/03/politics/trump-revoke-status-ohio-haitian-migrants/index.html
https://thehill.com/latino/4745949-biden-immigration-tps-haiti-mayorkas/
https://www.boundless.com/blog/biden-administration-ends-temporary-stay-program-thousands-of-migrants-from-four-countries/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/08/canada-migrants-trump-mass-deportation-plan
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/10/world/americas/a-surge-of-migrants-crossing-into-quebec-tests-canadas-welcome.html