Donald Trump’s administration is summoning Haitian immigrants in Ohio to immigration offices to either be immediately removed from the country or forced to wear ankle monitors before they face a deportation hearing.
Dozens of immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, with Temporary Protected Status were called into Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in recent days only to be outfitted with monitoring devices and blocked from traveling outside a 75-mile radius from their homes, according to legal and advocacy groups representing them.
Roughly 15,000 Haitians immigrants live in the Springfield area, many of whom were protected by TPS until a Supreme Court decision in June opened the door for the administration to revoke protections for roughly 350,000 Haitians in the U.S. and their families.
The administration’s cancellation of key humanitarian protections for thousands of Haitians has thrown their families, advocates and employers into an uncertain future as they fear the loss of legal status could make them vulnerable to arrest and removal to a country plagued by violence, political instability and economic hardship.
“It is so humiliating to see parents, fathers and mothers, who have not been committing any crime now with some type of ankle bracelets on their feet,” Viles Dorsainvil, executive director of Springfield’s Haitian Community Help and Support Center, told reporters. “That has created so much fear.”
Philbert Viaud, a Haitian resident of Columbus who has lived in the U.S. for five years, was seen wearing an ankle monitor after leaving an ICE office in suburban Cincinnati on Sunday and was told to return for an appointment in two weeks, according to the Cincinnati Inquirer.
He said he has been applying for asylum for the past four years.
Sony Prenice, another Haitian resident, was given a choice to either wear an ankle monitor or be deported with $2,600, she told reporters.
Carl Ruby, the senior pastor with Springfield’s Central Christian Church, also supported a member of his congregation who was called in for an appointment. “I want the ICE agents to look out and see me praying,” he told The Enquirer.
Letters to TPS holders from ICE officials tell recipients to bring “any and all immigration documents” to their offices within 30 days. “It is important that you keep this appointment and bring this letter with you,” the letter reads. “If you are unable to do so, state your reason, sign below, and return this letter to this office at once.”
A spokesperson for Homeland Security told The Independent that the agency “does not discuss ongoing or future operations.”
“Temporary Protected Status is exactly that — temporary,” the person said, which accused previous administrations of abusing TPS as a “de facto amnesty program despite Congress never intending it to be permanent.”
“What we would say now is it’s closing time which means you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here,” the person said. “The good news is it’s not too late to get a $2,600 check and a free flight home.”
Congress created the TPS program in 1990 to provide temporary immigration protections for people fleeing war, natural disasters and “extraordinary and temporary” conditions in their home countries. Beneficiaries are allowed to apply for renewable work permits and gain protection against deportation.
A 2010 earthquake in Haiti killed more than 200,000 people. The TPS designation has been extended several times in the years that followed.
Federal courts last year blocked the government from ending TPS after judges determined the administration had illegally and arbitrarily revoked protections on baseless, pretextual grounds fueled by “racial animus” and an anti-immigrant agenda.
Lawyers and judges pointed to “derogatory” statements from former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Trump, who baselessly claimed Haitian immigrants were “eating people’s pets” and labeled Haiti a “s*** hole country.”
Writing for the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, Justice Samuel Alito argued that “none of the cited statements by either the President or the Secretary was overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications.”
Last week, Homeland Security announced TPS for Haiti is officially “terminated” and alerted employers that work permissions have ended, triggering mass layoffs and legal confusion for Haitians with TPS seeking permanent status.
The Supreme Court’s decision could fuel the administration’s efforts to strip TPS designations that protect roughly 1.3 million immigrants from a dozen other countries, escalating the president’s threats against legal immigration pathways despite promising to target “the worst of the worst.”
“This is wrong, it’s punitive and excessive, and it tells you everything Trump’s ICE agents think about Haitians who came here legally,” Ohio Democratic Rep. Shontel Brown said Monday. “We will fight this.”
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill to extend TPS for Haiti earlier this year, marking a rare bipartisan effort supported by urgent pleas from Republicans in states with large immigrant populations. But Republicans ensured the bill would be dead on arrival in the Senate.
“This is an embarrassment for the United States of America,” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told reporters on Monday. “There is no safe place to return for TPS holders from places like Haiti and Yemen and Venezuela and Syria. In fact, in those places I just mentioned, the situation is not stabilizing, getting better. It is getting worse.”
