Trump says it’s safe to send Haitians home. NC advocates call that ‘anti-immigrant rhetoric.’

The termination of a program that allows Haitians who couldn’t return home after the 2010 earthquake to remain in the United States is just another way that President Donald Trump is rewriting the nation’s immigration policy without going through Congress, an N.C. immigration advocate says.

“It is disingenuous,” said Heather Scavone, director of the Humanitarian Immigration Law Clinic at Elon University School of Law. “This administration’s policy decision cannot be separated from the extremely anti-immigrant rhetoric that they have promoted since before the inauguration. I think that what we’re seeing is, across the board, whenever the president is able to restrict immigration without having to go to Congress to legislate something, he’s doing that.”

About 58,000 Haitians are living in the United States under Temporary Protection Status, or TPS, including as many as 2,500 in at least three communities in North Carolina. Several hundred Haitians are living in High Point, and an estimated 2,000 live around Mount Olive and Clinton.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump’s acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke announced a decision to terminate the Temporary Protected Status designation for Haiti, with a delayed effective date of 18 months. According to a release from Homeland Security, the decision to terminate TPS for Haiti was made after a review of conditions in the country.

“Significant steps have been taken to improve the stability and quality of life for Haitian citizens, and Haiti is able to safely receive traditional levels of returned citizens,” the government said.

TPS is used to give refuge to residents of a country experiencing extraordinary difficulties, such as natural disasters or civil war. It is considered by immigration advocates to be an important tool for humanitarian aid.

Scavone said that in the case of Haiti, the designation was used mostly for people who already were in the United States – legally or illegally – when the earthquake hit their home country in January 2010. It also applies to those who fled to the U.S. up to a year after the quake, which may have killed as many as 316,000 people, devastated the capital of Port-au-Prince and magnified infrastructure problems throughout one of the poorest nations in the world.

Haiti also was hit by a cholera epidemic after the earthquake and by Hurricane Matthew in October 2016.

Under TPS, which has to be applied for and periodically renewed, recipients are able to travel freely and work. They pay taxes, but are unable to receive benefits such as food stamps or public housing.

Scavone said the Trump administration’s termination of TPS for Haitians amounts to an a la carte dismantling of immigration protections. She cited the administration’s announcement in September that it would cut in half the number of refugees admitted the U.S.; a plan to suspend the program that allows family members to join refugees already settled in the United States; and a plan to end DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, that gave immigration protection to children brought illegally into the country.

The TPS policy change will require Haitians living in the U.S. under the program to leave the country by July 2019 or face deportation.

International relief groups say conditions continue to be difficult in Haiti. A bulletin from the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs published Nov. 7 said more than 1.3 million people in the country remain in crisis; more than 143,000 children suffer malnutrition and 3 million residents are moderately food insecure. Housing and safe drinking water continue to be in short supply in some areas, and hundreds of schools await repairs or reconstruction.

This story was originally published November 21, 2017 at 12:56 PM with the headline "Trump says it’s safe to send Haitians home. NC advocates call that ‘anti-immigrant rhetoric.’."