'Protection, not deportation': Miami Haitian leaders call for reversal of TPS decision

Churchill Ndonwie, Miami Herald on Jun 30, 2025

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MIAMI — Miami-Dade and Broward community leaders and activists said Monday they are sending a letter to President Donald Trump asking for a sit-down to discuss the recent decision by the administration to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haiti.

North Miami Beach Councilwoman Mary Estimé-Irvin called the administration’s decision “outright unjust.” She hopes the meeting with the president, if it happens, will help him understand both how the Haitian community contribution to South Florida’s economy has been “immeasurable” and how dire the crisis is in Haiti.

Haitians ”deserve protection, not deportation,” she said.

The leaders and activists hosted a press conference organized by the National Haitian American Elected Officials Network at Griffin Park Community Center in North Miami. They called not only for the Trump administration to reverse the TPS decision but also to extend Deferred Enforced Departure, another kind of protection from deportation, to Haitians. Miami-Dade County Commissioner Marlein Bastien said her phone has been constantly ringing from concerned residents asking her what to do.

Bastien said she has never received this many calls and questions in her 42 years living in Miami.

“People are depressed,” she said. Bastien said that some of the people affected by the TPS decision have been living in the United States for 50 years. “You’ve built your life here. You have a job, your businesses, your homes, your essential workers, and they are calling me, asking me, Commissioner Bastien, ‘What am I to do?’”

On Friday, the Trump administration ended TPS for Haiti, affecting as many as half-a-million Haitians living and working in the United States. The administration said Haiti had become safe enough for Haitians to return, but in a document to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, Homeland Secretatry Kristi Noem said providing TPS for Haiti does not align with the United State’s national interests — citing gang violence in Haiti and a lack of a functioning government as the reasons.

The termination of TPS for Haiti will be effective Sept 2. Long-time immigration and civil-rights attorney Ira Kurzban said the decision by the Trump administration was unprecedented in only giving 60 days’ notice of the termination. “The treatment that they are now giving Haitians in regards to TPS has never been done in the history of Temporary Protected Status,” he said.

Kurzban told the crowd of attendees that Haiti was a “quintessential example” of the people TPS was designed to protect. “We will continue to fight this in the courts,” he said.

The network of community leaders and officials all questioned the administration’s determination that Haiti is now safe enough for people to return. They cited the State Department’s recent warning that Americans should not travel to Haiti. Florida state Sen. Shevrin Jones called it a policy failure.

“This administration wants us to believe it is safe to send people back,” Jone said. “That’s not policy. That’s reckless. That’s dangerous. And that is inhumane.”

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