Remember Donald Trump’s lies about Haitians eating pets in Ohio? People in Central Florida, who count more than 40,000 people of Haitian heritage among our neighbors, know how vicious that slander was: Our community is greatly enriched — both financially and socially — by their presence and most locals would tell you they have more than earned the safety and opportunity they came here to find.
Read more Pictures: Orlando Pride Beat NC Courage
But they are haunted — as is anyone who cares about humanitarian crises — by what is happening in their island home. The Trump administration wants to pretend that everything is fine in Haiti. That’s another cruel fiction. The reality is that Haiti is in grasp of utter lawlessness, with no functioning government. Armed gangs control Port-au-Prince and increasingly, the rest of the nation; hunger is rampant and medical care disrupted and lacking critical supplies. Violence is the only order. Sending people back to Haiti now would be condemning many of them to short, brutal lives — or simply, death. Even as Trump’s attorneys argued last month that Haiti was stable enough to end temporary protected status for more than 350,000 Haitians — triggering mass deportations for people who have violated no laws — the State Department has issued a Level 4 “do not travel” advisory for among other things, armed conflict and unrest.
The same is true — perhaps even more so — for the thousands of Syrians who could also lose status. Meanwhile, Central Florida has been devastated by the decision to take TPS away from Venezuelans — to the point where absence of Venezuelan children has been cited as a potential factor in plummeting school enrollments in Central and South Florida.
The TPS program was created to provide a quick path to haven for nationals of countries that, as a result of natural or man-made disasters, were dangerous for people to return to, with routine reevaluations to decide if the protections would be extended or ended. Syria and Haiti remain dangerous; there’s just no way to dispute that.
Yes, Syria’s Assad family dictatorship was overthrown and the country has been on an uneasy path to greater stability though the balance is precarious and unlikely to be helped along by the sudden repatriation of thousands of people. However, that’s not so for Haiti, where the dire circumstances have barely budged since the nation was redesignated for TPS in 2024.
In any case, the question of conditions is relevant but not the main question that the justices must engage with. The Supreme Court, despite their frequent intimations in recent years, are not experts in every matter that comes before them; what they are meant to be experts in is the application of the law, and when it comes to TPS, what the law requires is that that the decisions be made only on the evidence and not as a result of the political preferences of the White House.
Read more Miss Manners: How long is the grace period before someone is considered late?
In this case, those preferences have been routinely, repeatedly, openly and explicitly laid out: Trump, his xenophobic aide Stephen Miller and all their acolytes within government view immigrants of all stripes as a problem to be solved and have committed to using their suite of authorities to limit the ability for immigrants — especially those that Trump has derided as low-IQ, coming from “sh--hole countries” and so on — to come to or stay in the country.
It is obviously no coincidence that both Trump administrations have attempted to terminate every single existing TPS designation that has come up for review; the actual expert analysis that is meant to guide this decision-making has been decidedly sidelined in favor of carrying out the agenda emanating from the White House, which by law is not really supposed to have any bearing on TPS determinations at all.
Multiple courts have already come to these determinations, in this term and in Trump’s first, when judges blocked several TPS termination efforts on the same grounds. Here, too, lower courts have already ruled that the administration’s decisions are resulting from animosity and not evidence. If it hears the issue fairly, the Supreme Court will come to the same conclusion — and ease the fears of Haitians who have come to belong here, and whose presence Central Floridians have learned to treasure.
This editorial was adapted from one that originally appeared in the New York Daily News. The Sentinel sometimes localizes editorials that reflect our overall point of view. The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Executive Editor Roger Simmons, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at [email protected].
Read more Eye test: Science center hosts optical-illusions exhibit