MIAMI, Fla. (CBS12) — Florida leaders and advocates are warning of devastating consequences after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, including roughly 160,000 living in South Florida.
The ruling, Mullin v. Doe, which was issued on Thursday, allowed the administration to move forward with ending TPS protections, leaving hundreds of thousands of Haitian nationals at risk of deportation despite violence and instability.
Speaking Friday in Miami, officials and immigration advocates condemned the decision, saying it could separate families and force people into a humanitarian crisis.
TPS recipient Farah Larieux told CBS Miami she fears returning to her home country:
I fear for my life if I go to Haiti because, actually, right now, the gangs, they run the country. So if I go wherever I live, they kidnap me, they can kill me.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI – FEBRUARY 13: A member of a security force chases crowds with a gun following a fire at Port-au-Prince’s historic Iron Market on February 13, 2018 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Hundreds of locals vendors lost all of their merchandise in the early morning blaze which is still under investigation. Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, is still reeling from President Donald Trump’s comments about the Caribbean nation and his decision to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians living in America following the 2010 earthquake that claimed over 300,000 lives. Haiti is currently preparing for the start of Carnival on Sunday. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
A Haitian man who fled the country in 2023 and wished to stay anonymous echoed those concerns.
“You feel like the shots are so close to you, you have to leave,” he said. “If there’s people going back to Haiti, this situation will be more catastrophic. For me, returning to Haiti is not a realistic plan.”
Attorney Sandra Cherfrere, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, said the ruling also creates legal complications for mixed-status families with children born outside Haiti.
“So what do you do? You’re going to send a Brazilian, Chilean, American national to Haiti when that’s not their country of origin? There’s no passport for them to go to Haiti,” Cherfrere said in comments provided to CBS News Miami.
And with the ruling comes the enforcement. One advocate, Denise Brown of the Broward-based nonprofit LifeNet for Families, told CBS Miami many Haitian families are already changing their daily routines:
Because they won’t go into supermarkets, they won’t go into stores. In many instances, they’re not leaving their homes.
The Department of Homeland Security, however, has defended ending the program. It argued that the administration has sought to terminate TPS for Haiti for years and that temporary restrictions were never meant to be permanent.
While local officials pledged to support affected families, Desulme acknowledged there is little municipalities can do to stop federal immigration enforcement.
“Unfortunately, us, as local officials, we cannot impede in anything that the federal government does, and we will not do that,” he said.
Leave a Reply