Spokane refugee communities search for path forward after Supreme Court decision allows parole status to be stripped
May 30—It's not clear how many refugees in the Spokane area will now lose their legal status to be in the U.S. following a decision Friday by the U.S. Supreme Court to allow President Donald Trump to end parole for roughly 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.
The news is devastating for those who had been fighting for them locally.
"This is just genocide. It's like sending somebody to death," said Rev. Luc Jasmin Jr., the founder of Jasmin Ministries, a multicultural church serving the Haitian and African community in Spokane.
More than 500,000 refugees from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who passed a background check and had a sponsor in the United States had been allowed to enter the country and request parole under the Biden-era program.
In March, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem issued a decision to end the parole of a half-million refugees from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela admitted to the U.S. under the special parole program in keeping with an executive order Trump issued shortly after his inauguration in January. On the campaign trail, Trump also explicitly and broadly derided many of these communities, including baseless claims that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Ohio.
On Friday, the Supreme Court stopped an injunction from a lower court that had temporarily barred the federal government from categorically ending the parole status of these refugees, allowing the White House to strip their legal status while legal challenges continue.
"Today, the American people landed a legal victory to terminate parole for more than 530,000 illegal aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV) who were released into the country by the Biden Administration," the Department of Homeland Security wrote on the social media platform X. "Ending the CHNV parole programs, as well as the paroles of those who exploited it, will be a necessary return to common-sense policies, a return to public safety, and a return to America First."
Mark Finney, director of Spokane-based refugee aid organization Thrive International, called the federal government's labeling of these refugees as "illegal aliens" ironic, given that it was the Trump administration itself that was stripping them of their legal status.
"Ostensibly, this is about improving our national security and legal systems, so why are they putting more emphasis on stripping legal status away from productive members of society who are working jobs and contributing and paying taxes, rather than fixing the system with millions of undocumented folks living in the shadows?" Finney said.
"It is sad, ironic and frustrating that the current administration is so focused on stripping legal status away and creating a much larger undocumented community than we already have," he added.
Katia Jasmin, Luc's sister and director of Creole Resources, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the Haitian community in Spokane, estimated around 200 Haitians in the Spokane area now face losing their legal status and ability to work.
"Some of them work for Amazon, and Amazon has already stopped them from working," Katia said. "They now cannot pay for their housing; they are scared, they are stressed. There's fear everywhere."
She doesn't understand why her community is being targeted.
"I really want to meet with the president, to ask him why he is targeting us," she added. "Why Haitians? People that know us in Spokane, we don't bother people, we work — I don't know why they targeted us. If we're doing something wrong, I wouldn't mind them deporting us, but we don't bother people."
Luc estimates around 10% to 15% of his congregation have simply stopped attending since March in fear of being deported.
"Haitians are not here because they want to," Luc said. "They are here because they're trying to escape from the situation back home that is dangerous."
Christi Armstrong, director of the Spokane branch of refugee resettlement organization World Relief, called the Trump administration's categorical targeting of refugees from these communities "disturbing."
"As a human being, I think of the people who have left everything, left all of their worldly goods, left jobs, oftentimes family and friends — what are they going back to?" Armstrong said. "How are they going to have a life in a place where they fled from because they feared for their lives?"
Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown said her office has begun reaching out to affected communities in the city to try to better understand what it can do to "help them have a safe path forward."
"It is undeniable that people in Spokane — we don't know how many — who came here legally under a humanitarian program, are now experiencing anxiety and needless suffering as a result of the administration's order, the Supreme Court ruling and the failure of Congress to pass sensible and human immigration policy," Brown said in a statement.
It's not clear, however, what further steps can be taken.
"We don't know who to turn to and what to do with it," Luc said. "We just pray."
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