Haiti's refugees deserve to stay
Hurricane Matthew victims receive food from the UN's World Food Programme in the south west of Haiti. Credit: AFP/Getty Images/HECTOR RETAMAL
The Biden administration is right to extend immigration protections to tens of thousands of Haitians who have found a new home and brought new vibrancy and cultural contributions to America, especially on Long Island.
They are among the beneficiaries of the Temporary Protected Status program that is one of the federal government’s generous, if bureaucratically frustrating, efforts to stabilize the lives of those fleeing terrible conditions elsewhere in the world, including armed conflict or natural disasters. The program allows recipients to live and work in the U.S. provisionally and be safeguarded from deportation.
In Haiti’s case, designation for the program came in 2010 in response to the catastrophic effects of a 7.0-magnitude earthquake, and as of the end of 2020 some 54,000 Haitians were beneficiaries of the program. That’s the third-largest contingent among the nations currently designated for TPS, behind El Salvador and Honduras, victims of earthquakes and a hurricane in 2001 and 1998.
Haiti’s TPS designation has been extended repeatedly, and President Joe Biden’s action maintains the status quo for another 18 months for Haitian nationals residing in the U.S. as of May 21.
Critics of the program say the repeat extensions turn a temporary effort into a near-permanent one, and that the bad conditions that caused people to flee to the U.S. are years in the past. That’s a weak argument for Haiti, which is experiencing social unrest, human rights abuses and deep poverty amid a constitutional crisis, all during the COVID-19 pandemic. It does not make sense to uproot thousands and put them in potential danger.
The administration’s action on Haiti does not settle matters for TPS recipients from other nations, nor does it solve the many ongoing immigration questions from the border to immigration court backlogs. But it’s a far cry from the actions of the past administration. President Donald Trump sought to cut off Haitians from the protection program, an effort that was stalled in court. It was of a piece with Trump’s concerted, multilateral efforts to reduce various forms of immigration to the U.S. and reshape the face of the nation: In 2018, he pondered why we’d want "all these people from shithole countries," objecting to newcomers from some African nations and Haiti.
Haitian immigrants have become valued community members, business owners and leaders in Nassau and Suffolk counties and across the country since that 2010 earthquake. This decision grants them a reprieve, but the critics are right that the complicated temporary semi-permanence of TPS is challenging. Many immigrants would like some certainty as they lay down roots, participating in the American economy and civic life.
As with most issues on this subject, it’s a puzzle that can best be solved with a comprehensive immigration deal, providing TPS recipients and other immigrants who have been living here for years or even decades with some form of a path to normalization or citizenship. Unfortunately, that big and common sense deal still proves elusive in Washington.
— The editorial board
