‘Returning to Haiti is suicide': Migrants face harrowing choice after Supreme Court ruling
From the moment President Donald Trump took office, Flo has worried and contemplated her next steps.
The mother of a 5-year-old daughter who is still in Haiti, Flo, the beneficiary of the Biden-era humanitarian program known as CHNV, didn't want to be limited by the restrictions that come with a political asylum claim, so she didn't apply. But neither did the North Miami woman want to return to gang-ridden Haiti, where most people are dependent on the remittances that flow into the country from abroad to survive — and where in moments everyday life can take a drastic turn for the worse.
'I've been looking at my options,' said Flo, who asked that her full name not be used for fear she will be targeted by immigration authorities. She said she's thinking about moving to Canada, where she has over a dozen family members, but has yet to make up her mind. 'Returning to Haiti is suicide. You never know what's going to happen to you.'
On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court left Flo and as many as a half-million other immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela with few options when it ruled that the Trump administration can, for the moment, terminate the humanitarian program that granted them temporary legal status in the United States.
'I couldn't see any hope in Haiti and even now, I don't see any hope,' said Flo. 'When they say 'Haitians have to go,' and Haitians don't want to leave, it's because they know there is no life in Haiti.'
Even though there are parts of Haiti not yet controlled by the armed criminal gangs that have run amok in the capital and other regions, it's just a matter of time, because the government has been so inept at combating them, Flo said: 'When you have an open wound and you don't treat it, it will spread.'
Unlike Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, whose governments have been traditionally reluctant to take back deportees from the United States, Haiti always complies, making Haitians in the U.S. more vulnerable that the other nationalities.
Haiti's government says it can't turn down the repatriation of its citizens. But more fundamentally, the country's current unelected leaders are totally dependent on the U.S. for their political survival, for humanitarian assistance and for the money that pays for the country's national police and an international security support mission.
Kidnappings, other atrocities
This year alone, the Trump administration has landed at least three Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights in Haiti. Though the numbers are nowhere that of the Dominican Republic — which has repatriated at least 139,000 Haitians this year — the Department of Homeland Security has sent deportation flights despite warnings about the dangers Haitians face on returning and calls by immigration advocates and the United Nations to stop.
Haitians make up one of the largest beneficiaries of the parole program — known as CHNV for the initials of the four nationalities affected — with approximately 211,010 taking advantage of the benefit as of the end of last year. Haitians were not part of the program initially, but they were added by the Biden administration to provide humanitarian relief as the country collapsed into lawlessness, as well as to prevent a mass migration to South Florida.
The program allowed people from the four countries to come to the U.S., at a rate of 30,000, a month if they passed background checks, had a financial sponsor in the U.S. and bought their plane ticket.
Some of the Haitians who arrived as part of the program were people like Flo, living outside the capital and searching for a better life. Others — nurses, police officers, bankers, doctors and other professionals —had been victims of kidnappings and other atrocities.
Now, in the absence of some other means of staying legally in the U.S. such as Temporary Protected Status or a political asylum claim, they have found themselves forcibly rendered undocumented overnight, leaving them vulnerable to deportation to a country that remains overwhelmed by violence and rapidly worsening political instability.
'Today's ruling does not just impact up to half a million legal immigrants in this country. It upends the lives of their employers, their families and their loved ones,' Karen Tumlin, founder and director of the advocacy group Justice Action Center, said on the brink of tears during a press call Friday. 'In short, it impacts all of us. Trump's cruel immigration agenda is not dramatically sealed off from those of us who have the fortune to be U.S. citizens at birth, we are all impacted by this cruelty, and to all Americans who care about the rule of law.'
In Haiti's case, neither a recent U.S. designation of the armed groups as terrorist organizations nor a multinational force led by Kenya has made a dent in the gangs' ability to sow chaos. So its nationals in the United States who came under the CHNV program now face a hard choice: Do they stay and risk being deported, return home and being kidnapped or killed, or flee some place else?
'For the Trump administration to find it okay to send people to Haiti right now is unbelievable. It's unconscionable,' said Guerline Joseph, executive director and co-founder of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, an immigrants' rights group. 'We don't even understand the narrative behind it, other than ... racism.
'We are calling on the administration to reconsider their plan, and we are calling on the American people to voice their concerns against these extreme conditions, and we are asking the community to stay vigilant, to make sure that they take care of themselves, take a moment to breathe,' she added.
Speaking directly to Haitians in Creole during a press conference after the Supreme Court decision, Joseph acknowledged what she called a 'painful day.' But she said the group's legal team, which filed the lawsuit that led to the Supreme Court's order Friday, plans to continue its fight.
'Many lives are at risk, and we know that deportations continue to go to Haiti every single month, so we are really pushing back and trying to see what's the best way moving forward,' she said.
'Deeply disappointing'
Paul Christian Namphy, policy director of Family Action Network Movement in Miami, which works with Haitian migrants, also called on the Haitian community to remain united and engaged.
'This deeply disappointing ruling jeopardizes the lives of approximately half a million people who fled violence and instability seeking safety, dignity and opportunity,' said Namphy. 'We will not stop fighting for the rights, dignity and livelihoods of immigrants.'
Rivly Breus knew that the CHNV program had a two-year window when she applied with her Miami non-profit, the Erzule Paul Foundation, to help resettle refugees by providing financial sponsorship. Through the organization Welcome.US, Breus and other Americans were encouraged to sponsor refugees from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ukraine and Afghanistan.
Breus, who lives in North Miami, took in 30 people, whom she helped find jobs, enroll in school and start making a better life. 'It's not that they want to leave their country to come to America,' she said. 'It's just circumstances that are forcing them to come over here.... They are grateful to be here away from all the tragedies and difficulties they were facing in their homeland.'
She said the administration's line tarring immigrants are criminals is wrong. 'These people are family members, mothers, daughters, sons, fathers, and just your regular next-door neighbor, basically they're just looking to survive,' she said.
Though she said she isn't shocked by Friday's ruling, she is disappointed and worried about its impact.
'We thought that going through the courts would give us more time to do what we needed to do, whether it's finding loopholes or trying to get as many advocates together to see if we could put a halt on the proceedings,' Breus said. 'Now what do I tell those who have court dates when they go to court? What's going to happen? Are they going to be deported right away? Are they going to be taken on a bus to a detention center?'
Those are the very questions people have been asking her, especially those from Haiti, even before Friday's ruling.
'Where are they going to go?' Breus said as her mother, a Haitian immigrant herself, looked on. 'The ones from Port-au-Prince, they can't go back, because some of their homes are occupied by gangs, or their neighborhoods are occupied. For those who are going elsewhere outside of Port-au-Prince, where there was unemployment and no stability or opportunities, what kind of opportunity is there?''
'Going someplace else'
Flo has been in the U.S. since 2023, and works a part-time job stocking store shelves overnight making $14.50 an hour. Some weeks she may work three days or even a full week. Other weeks she may find herself sitting at home for five straight days. Regardless of whether she works or not, she has to send money home to take care of her daughter and other family members.
'If you are working over here and you have family in Haiti and you don't send money, you're committing a huge crime,' she said.
Though life in the U.S. hasn't been without challenges, she said, it's still better than Haiti.
'Here you can walk outside and know nothing is going to happen to you,' she said. 'But not in Haiti. There you can lie down and, just like that, you're dead from a stray bullet.'
Still, she knows her time is running out and her options are limited. Though she has Temporary Protected Status, that will end in three months unless the administration extends it, which appears unlikely.
The administration, which announced Friday that diplomat Henry Wooster will replace U.S. Ambassador Dennis Hankins to lead its embassy in Port-au-Prince, has not given any indication of what it will do.
'If they tell me categorically I have to go, I don't have a choice,' Flo said.
Still, she says, Haiti is not an option, even though she misses her daughter and it pains her to hear her ask when she is coming home.
'I'm going some place else.'
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