Homeland Security Extends Haitian Immigration Protections Temporarily

On May 22, Director of Homeland Security John Kelly extended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 58,000 Haitian immigrants. They have been residing in the U.S. since a 2010 earthquake devastated the island nation. Kelly noted in his official statement:

"This six-month extension should allow Haitian TPS recipients living in the United States time to attain travel documents and make other necessary arrangements for their ultimate departure from the United States, and should also provide the Haitian government with the time it needs to prepare for the future repatriation of all current TPS recipients."

Some supporters of the move hoped for an 18-24 month deportation reprieve given on-going health and housing issues in the country. Sec. Kelly’s decision noted, however, that Haiti had made "progress across several fronts", a view consistent with a December 2016 report from the State Department.

Temporary Protected Status is an immigration designation that arose out of the Immigration Act of 1990. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) explains the program as a temporary measure to help immigrants whose home countries are not safe to return to:

"The Secretary of Homeland Security may designate a foreign country for TPS due to conditions in the country that temporarily prevent the country's nationals from returning safely, or in certain circumstances, where the country is unable to handle the return of its nationals adequately. USCIS may grant TPS to eligible nationals of certain countries (or parts of countries), who are already in the United States. Eligible individuals without nationality who last resided in the designated country may also be granted TPS.”

Participants in the program can secure working papers and travel documents for the duration of the designation.

Critics of the program point out that the program has no stipulated term, so the designation can go on indefinitely. In the National Review, Mark Krikorian argues for a change to the law, which currently allows the executive branch to extended the designation indefinitely. Instead, he wants the executive branch to be able to assign the designation, but Congress to have to vote on any extensions. He points to legislation currently in front of the House Judiciary Committee, the Davis-Oliver Act, which contains provisions to this effect.

Krikorian also argues that the current designation doesn’t even make sense, because it only covers those Haitians that were in the U.S. prior to the earthquake. He points to continued Haitian deportations (459 in 2015 and 310 in 2016):

"If we’re deporting people who aren’t covered by TPS to a country, what justification can there be to let others stay?"

Krikorian notes those numbers as showing that Haiti is not "unable, temporarily, to handle adequately the return of its citizens". The 58,000 Haitian immigrants in the U.S. covered under TPS is an order of magnitude, however, many times beyond those numbers.

According to a January 2017 report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), there were more than 300,000 immigrants from 13 countries covered by TPS: El Salvador, Guinea, Haiti, Honduras, Liberia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The longest standing is Liberia, which first received the designation in 1991 following the outbreak of civil war, and then had the designation renewed in 2014 due to the Ebola virus. The three countries that have been designated due to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa—Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea—saw their status expire on May 21.

The CRS states that TPS allows the U.S. government to provide "blanket relief" to “those migrants who may not meet the legal definition of refugee but are nonetheless fleeing—or reluctant to return to—potentially dangerous situations”. When TPS designation expires those immigrants are not necessarily immediately deported. They revert back to whatever prior immigration status they held, and must figure out individually what their next steps should be.

The Trump administration could, in January 2018, extend Haiti’s TPS designation, but Sec. Kelly’s statement has not encouraged those Haitians covered to count on it.

Should the executive branch be able to continue to assign and extend Temporary Protected Status designations or should the extensions be voted on by Congress? Use the Take Action button to tell your reps what you think!

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— Asha Sanaker

(Photo Credit: FMSC Distribution Partner Haiti via Flickr / Creative Commons)