Long Island Haitians dread U.S. order lifting immigrant protection Aug. 3, saying families will be split up

Haitians and their advocates on Long Island were greeted with dread by a Trump administration move setting the stage for mass deportations this summer to Haiti, an island nation reeling under gang violence.

The decision announced Thursday by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem could end a form of protection called Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, which had given legal status but not a path to immigration for about half a million Haitians living in the United States, including thousands on Long Island. This means they could lose work permits and be eligible for removal Aug. 3 unless the administration extends protection.

"We are heartbroken," said Maryse Emmanuel-Garcy, executive director of Haitian American Family of Long Island, a community group. "Those people have been there paying the taxes, doing the work," she said. "We are part of the fabric of Long Island. The impact will be big — in hospitals, banks, in every aspect of life on Long Island."

The deportations would force some of those families to make an impossible choice, said Assemb. Michaelle Solages (D-Elmont): Because Haitian TPS recipients are often the parents of American-born children, "deportation would either force families to take American citizen children to Haiti, where they may face unsafe conditions, or leave them behind in the United States, separated from their parents," she wrote in an email.

Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries where conditions temporarily prevent people from returning safely. Those conditions include ongoing armed conflict or environmental disasters such as hurricanes or earthquakes. The United States designated Haiti for TPS after a 2010 earthquake killed 300,000 people, or about 3% of the population at the time. By the end of the Biden administration, 1 million immigrants from 17 countries were protected by TPS, including people from Venezuela, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Sudan, Ukraine and Lebanon. The Trump administration has already moved to end the protections for Venezuelans, though advocates are challenging that move in lawsuits.

A homeland security release announcing the decision Thursday said the agency had in 2011 estimated 57,000 Haitians were eligible to register for TPS, but by 2024, the number had grown to 520,694. The TPS system "has been abused and exploited by illegal aliens for decades," the release said. "This is part of President Trump’s promise to rescind policies that were magnets for illegal immigration and inconsistent with the law."

But Solages, the first person of Haitian descent to be elected to the New York State Legislature, condemned the move. "They are taxpayers, people with work authorization who have built lives and families here ... These people pay mortgages and rent. They support families."

Solages said some Haitians who would be eligible for deportation have lived in the United States since the 2010 earthquake. "Those are two very different worlds, Haiti 15 years ago and now," she said. "There’s already kidnapping of Haitian nationals. ... They could be targeted."

Nassau County has about 26,000 residents who identify as Haitian while Suffolk has about 14,800, according to 2020 census data. There are 21,000 Haitian TPS holders in New York State, according to the American Immigration Council, which cited 2023 Census data.

In New York City, home to one of the largest Haitian communities in the country, a 2018 fact sheet released by the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs put the number of Haitian TPS recipients at around 5,400. They earned a combined $91 million in yearly income, generating an estimated $206 million in gross city product, according to the fact sheet. About 2,100 American-born children who would not be eligible for deportation lived in households with TPS recipients.

In a phone interview Friday, the Rev. Onick Bouquet, who leads a mostly Haitian congregation in Hauppauge whose members include TPS recipients, said he expected the move would deepen anxiety already experienced by many in his flock. "They are afraid to come to church on Sunday, some of them, even though they are legal because they have TPS," he said.

He said he feared for the safety of anyone deported to Haiti. "There is no control. The government doesn’t have any power," he said. "Life will be hard for them."

In remarks this week to Caribbean leaders meeting in Barbados, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called for a security plan "to address the appalling situation in Haiti — where gangs are inflicting intolerable suffering on a desperate and frightened people."

UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said Feb. 7 that armed groups controlled 85% of the capital city of Port-au-Prince and that there had been a 1,000% increase in sexual violence against children from 2023 to 2024.

"Essential services have collapsed," he said in a statement. "Hospitals are overwhelmed. More than half of Haiti’s health facilities lack the equipment and medication to treat children in emergencies.

Haiti’s embassy did not respond to a request for comment. DHS did not respond to emailed questions about how deportations would be carried out.

Some Democrats in New York's congressional delegation called the decision inhumane. In a statement, Rep. Laura Gillen (D-Rockville Centre) called the decision to end TPS status for Haitians "dangerous and cruel."

Gillen said: "This decision will have a devastating impact for the large Haitian American community on Long Island, tearing hardworking, law-abiding Haitian families apart and sentencing some of our neighbors who contribute to our economy to what may be tantamount to a death sentence due to the ongoing gang violence and political turmoil in Haiti. ”

 U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), in a statement, said: "Deporting thousands of Haitians who peacefully live in the United States will only fuel the ongoing instability in Haiti, harming our national security."

A spokeswoman for Catholic Charities of Long Island, a major social services organization, said staffers there work with Haitians legally in the United States on TPS and were "concerned about what will happen if they are forced to return to the political unrest and gang violence awaiting them in Haiti."

With AP