On the eve of this nation’s 250th anniversary, we reflect on its accomplishments. But we shouldalso take stock of moments when our faith in America’s innate goodness falters. Most of us still want to believe that we are people of compassion, a society that judges others on their accomplishments instead of their accent, a nation that keeps its promises.
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Right now, that faith is shaking as a wave of cruelty sweeps through our communities. And still, some people insist that admitting the flaws in our history — and our present — constitutes an act of innate disloyalty.
They are wrong. And across Central Florida, we are living through the consequences of deliberate blindness. People we’ve grown to know as neighbors, coworkers, caretakers or simply friendly faces are facing exile after living here for decades. They are sorting through their belongings to determine what they must leave behind before returning to Honduras, Afghanistan or Venezuela, which just suffered two devastating earthquakes that left hundreds dead and will add more strain to an already fragile economy.. People who came here from two failed nations – Syria and Haiti — were hit Thursday with a Supreme Court ruling that strips away their protection against deportation.
Denying reality
The court ignored the fact that the order canceling TPS protection defies reality in two ways: First, it ignores ample evidence that Haiti is as unstable as it’s ever been — an “unprecedented crisis,” as Mike Waltz, President Donald Trump’s current ambassador to the United Nations and former Central Florida congressman, said in October.
“We have gangs that are terrorizing communities, extorting families, recruiting children to commit horrors on behalf of the gang leaders,” Waltz told the U.N. Security Council during a briefing on Haiti. “The spillover effects of this violence threaten not only Haiti but the stability of the wider Caribbean and the Western Hemisphere.”
Does that sound like a nation that’s recovered enough for refugees to return?
Even before the earthquakes, conditions in Venezuela were also dire, with two-thirds of its residents living in poverty and housing often unattainable — something that’s likely to worsen after thousands of homes and apartment buildings were destroyed in the quake. It’s still far too early for a comprehensive assessment of quake damages but as of Friday, the death toll was approaching 1,000 people, while preliminary estimates of the economic toll run as high as 7% of Venezuela’s gross domestic product.
U.S. Rep. Darren Soto is an Orlando Democrat who represents several communities where Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants are clustered. “The idea of deporting Venezuelans back to Venezuela is inhumane and dangerous,” he said Friday. He supports more paths to citizenship for people who earn it. So do we.
Nation will be poorer
We also take issue with the Department of Homeland Security’s blankly illogical claim that it is suddenly “contrary to the national interest of the United States” to allow these targeted groups to remain. Nothing could be further from the truth. Roughly 80% of TPS participants are working, often in jobs many Americans don’t want to do — and contributing. They buy homes, have children, start businesses and pay more than $8 billion in combined taxes. Most TPS recipients are meticulously law-abiding, for good reason — one felony conviction or two misdemeanors would have cost them TPS protections.
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Residents of Central Florida don’t need to be told about the contributions these immigrants make; they can see it for themselves. The hospitality, long-term care, construction and healthcare industries all rely heavily on immigrant labor.
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Holding on to hope
There are a few small rays of hope. At a press conference Friday, U.S. Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost vowed aid to people who want to fight to stay in the United States. “One of the most heartbreaking things just in the last 24 hours of speaking with people …There’s fear they’re going to be detained tomorrow, or they feel like maybe they need to self-deport,” he said. Many families will be torn apart because parents want their U.S.-born children to stay in school, he added. He introduced representatives of two groups that will work to help immigrants apply for different types of protection.
There’s one more measure that could help. In Thursday’s ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court said it didn’t have the authority to override the Department of Homeland Security’s termination of TPS. But Congress does. A bill that would restore TPS status for Haitians passed the House in April on a narrow vote that saw 10 Republicans breaking ranks, including Florida’s Mario Diaz-Balart, Carlos Gimenez and Maria Elvira Salazar.
Floridians should put pressure on their senators, Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, to step up before the U.S. shames itself even more, through mass deportations of people who have done nothing wrong.
The seeds of shame
And if lawmakers need one more reason to do the right thing, they can research the history of the M.S. St. Louis, an ocean liner carrying refugees seeking safe haven. After being denied by Cuba, the ship approached Florida and lingered offshore, so close the passengers could see the lights of Miami. They pleaded for compassion, but were again refused because quotas had already been met for the year.
The year was 1939. After one more rejection by Canada, the ship turned back to Europe. Almost all of its 937 passengers were German Jews who had already seen friends and family members hauled off to forced-labor camps. Upon their return, most ended up in countries that were invaded and subdued by the German army. More than 250 were documented to have died in concentration camps. Their desperate hope, their cruel denial still weigh on this nation’s soul 87 years later, though most Americans only caught glimpses of the doomed passengers through news reels.
The United States was taught a harsh lesson in compassion as the reality of the Holocaust unfolded. It flowered into a series of measures intended to provide asylum for people fleeing conditions that most Americans can barely imagine — with the most recent being the TPS program. For 35 years, the program worked as intended, and the United States was rewarded for its benevolence. Now that shame is echoing again, etched in the grief of people who were offered the promise of protection — only to have it clawed away on false pretenses.
If forced to return to the countries they may barely remember, they will be in mortal peril. And their presence in this nation is not contrary to the interests of the United States. In fact, it is a gift. It may be too late to save the thousands who have already been deported, but it is not too late to save those who are still here, whose fear and grief are visible to us all. The U.S. has always prided itself on its great and generous heart. Now its people should rise up and demand a cessation of cruelty that threatens to paint another stain of shame on the legacy of this great nation.
T he Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Executive Editor Roger Simmons and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Use [email protected] to contact us.
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