We Must Fight on Two Fronts: Protecting Haitians in America While Preparing Haiti for Their Return

Somewhere today, perhaps in Springfield, Brooklyn, or Mattapan, a Haitian family is sitting around a kitchen table trying to understand what the Supreme Court’s recent ruling means for their future, weighing the possibility that everything they have built in the United States could soon be at risk, and searching for the words to explain it to children who were born and raised here what this all means.

That family’s dilemma is not only about immigration policy. It is about a broader rejection of Black and Brow people in the United States. Indeed, what TPS holders are experiencing now is only the start of a wider plan that will engulf all of us, whether we are legal residents or US citizens.

Although our ancestors were brought here in chains, we must now fight for our rightful place in the nations we helped build.

During this struggle, we must learn from American history, because what is happening now is not new. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced Native tribes across the South from their ancestral land. Between 1929 and 1936, Mexican Repatriation sent an estimated 300,000 to 2,000,000 people to Mexico, a majority of them citizens by some accounts. In 1954, Operation Wetback removed more than a million people in a matter of months, sweeping up American citizens along with the undocumented. Legal status has rarely been the shield we assume it to be.

This is the reality of America, and as we face yet another wave of hostility toward Black and brown people, as Haitian-Americans, we must fight on two fronts at once. The first is here in the US by continuing to defend Haitian families’ dignity and press for a permanent legal solution. The other front is in Haiti, where the political leaders have not shown any sign of caring about what happens to Haitians in Haiti or abroad.

An Unchecked Presidency and the Politics of Race in America

On June 25, the Supreme Court in Mullin v. Doe sharply limited judicial review of presidential decisions to end Temporary Protected Status, thereby expanding executive control over immigration policy. Congress created TPS in 1990 precisely to keep that kind of discretion in check, and the Court’s own opinion noted that Congress still has tools to stop any abuse of that discretion. However, the current Republican Congress has shown no will to use its power or fulfill its constitutional responsibilities. While Democratic members were able to push through and pass H.R. 1689, which calls for extending Haiti’s TPS designation for three years, its Senate companion, S. 4814, remains stalled.

The court’s ruling cannot be separated from the political record surrounding it. The president has repeatedly voiced views on immigration that are simply racist, including past remarks about Haiti and other nations he called “shithole countries,” alongside praise for immigrants from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. The federal judge who first heard the Haitian case took those remarks seriously, finding that ending Haiti’s protections likely reflected racial animus. The Supreme Court did not decide whether that finding was correct. It decided only that no court may ask. At the same time, this administration slashed the annual refugee ceiling from 125,000 to 7,500, the lowest in the program’s history, and directed nearly all of those remaining slots to white Afrikaners from South Africa. Haitian families did not choose to become the test case for how selectively this country applies its own stated values, yet that is where they now stand. For an administration that has made immigration its most potent and reliable political issue, ending TPS for Haitians delivers both an ideological and a political win. Given this context, we must now prepare for the worst.

A National Konbit for National Renewal

The old adage that to govern is to anticipate has never been part of Haiti’s political culture. Nothing illustrates that failure more clearly than watching Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé and a delegation of ministers travel to World Cup events in Boston and Philadelphia while Haiti spiraled deeper into insecurity and economic decline. At precisely the moment when his government should have been focused on making Haiti safe for its children and preparing for the potential return of hundreds of thousands of its own citizens, it chose spectacle over strategy.

Haitian elites are always talking about investments, so a government worthy of the name would’ve already created a National Return and Reintegration Authority. This agency would’ve been ready to leverage the expertise, savings, and networks of returning Haitians to foster Haiti’s renewal, particularly in rural areas lacking those essential resources.

Since the central government is absent, regional leaders, who know their communities better, could take on this work. Indeed, Haiti’s constitution already provides the framework, with the Communal Section Assemblies, Municipal Assemblies, and Departmental Assemblies, designed to root power in local communities rather than concentrate it in Port-au-Prince. Departments and municipalities do not need Port-au-Prince’s permission to develop a plan to attract returning families. They can create regional economic hubs in Cap-Haïtien, Les Cayes, Gonaïves, Jacmel, and other cities. This is not a new idea. Haiti’s own 2012 strategic development plan designated these same cities as regional poles meant to anchor growth outside the capital, and then left that plan to sit largely unbuilt for over a decade. Waiting for the central government has cost Haiti in every previous crisis. It should not be allowed to cost this one too.

Those who return can bring exactly what those institutions need. They have worked inside functioning hospitals, municipalities, and businesses, and they understand how services get delivered and how public agencies are held accountable. Haiti’s greatest failure has never been a shortage of talent. It has been our failure of imagination and an inability to organize that talent around a shared purpose. We can celebrate Haitians living abroad for their achievement one day, then ignore and treat them as outsiders the next, as we just did with the Grenadiers.

Hope Is Not a Plan

I hope the Haitian family at that kitchen table never has to make this decision. But hope is not a plan, and our people have survived on more than hope and cannot afford to start now. The House already passed a bill extending Haiti’s TPS designation for three years. Its Senate companion, S. 4814, is what Haitian-American organizations across the country are now mobilizing to pass. Those of us who are citizens or permanent residents should call our senators this week and ask them to support it.

At the same time, those of us who support organizations on the ground in Haiti should organize now and work with mayors and departmental leaders to build regional plans that meet local needs, without waiting on a central government that has already shown it will not lead. If you have standing in your home department or commune, this is the moment to put that plan before the people who can act on it. We have long said that Haiti’s brainpower lives in what people call the “diaspora.” This is yet another chance to prove it.

Finally, thank you for reading!

I'll be taking a short break from writing this summer to focus on the work that these articles have always been pointing toward: organizing, building partnerships, and helping turn ideas into action for Black communities in America and for Haiti. If this article resonated with you, I hope you'll consider joining that effort, because the future we want will not be written for us. It will be built by us, together.