People living and working in Haiti are questioning the Trump administration’s reasoning that it is safe enough for Haitians temporarily living in the U.S. to return to their embattled country of origin.
The Department of Homeland Security announced Friday that it will end Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for Haitian people living in the United States legally.
“How can DHS send 500,000 Haitians back to a country that is the most dangerous country in the world?” Len Gengel, who runs a nonprofit organization in Haiti that helps orphaned children, told NBC News. “It’s crazy. It’s a war zone.”
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s announcement was the latest effort by President Donald Trump and his administration to accelerate deportations for Haitian immigrants living in the country. The TPS program was created in 1990 to provide people in disaster-stricken countries to find legal, short-term refuge in the United States. Its abrupt end means deportation for immigrants of 17 other countries, too, including Sudan, Lebanon and Afghanistan. Haitians are expecte to leave by September 2
More than 1,800 people were kidnapped and 8,200 killed in Haiti since gang violence escalated in March of last year; a record 1.3 million people are currently homeless, according to the United Nations.
Armed gangs seized control over much of the capital, Port-au-Prince, after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse on July 7, 2021.. Since Moïse’s assasination, the country has been in relentless turmoil, with no discernable government, as it endures extreme violence, hunger and homelessness.
According to a recent report from the International Organization for Migration, there has been a 24% increase in displaced people in the last six months, with 11% of Haiti’s nearly 12 million residents chased out of their homes by gunmen.
In fact, the State Department’s 2024 advisory for Haiti remains in effect, warning Americans not to travel to the country due to “kidnapping, crime, civil unrest and limited health care.”
Still, the Trump administration expects Haitians to return to their home country in about two months.
“The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement last week. There was no mention of how conditions have improved. NBC News’ request for additional comment went unanswered.
In a news conference Monday,North Miami councilwoman Mary Estimé-Irvin called the decision was “outright unjust.”. She pointed out that the announcement came days after the U.S. Embassy in Haiti warned Americans to vacate the country immediately due to violence and instability.
“Let’s be clear, Haiti is in a crisis,” she said. “Gang-ruled streets once filled with hope. Schools are shattered, hospitals overwhelmed, families displaced. To say Haiti is safe to return defies facts, reason and morality.”
As someone coming in and out of Haiti for 15 years, Gengel said conditions have not improved. “Seeing this country fall apart is so devastating,” he said. “People are dying of starvation after years of this gang war.”
Gengel and his nonprofit, Be Like Brit Foundation, began his work in Haiti assisting orphans to honor the wishes of his daughter, Britney, who died there at age 19 while providing aid during the devastating earthquake of 2010. The troubles on the island have only gotten worse, leading 500,000 Haitians to seek asylum status in the U.S. in the last 15 years.
Gengel began working in the country soon after his daughter’s death, after closing his business in Massachusetts to fulfill Britney’s wish.
To keep the children in his orphanage safe, Gengel said he had to learn how to shoot a firearm and has purchased guns to support the hired security at the Port-au-Prince facility.
“I never shot a gun until I was 60 years old,” he said. “I’ve had to learn to shoot and get a gun license. It’s like we are in prison.”
One of the children Gengel helped in Haiti came to the U.S. under President Biden’s administration and obtained temporary protected status. He now works as a bookkeeper but “they won’t renew his work permit,” Gengel said. “He may have to return to Haiti this summer.”
Some have compared Trump’s cancellation of the TPS program as a “death sentence.”
“Deporting people back to these conditions is a death sentence for many, stripping them of their fundamental right to safety and dignity,” said Tessa Pettit, a Haitian American who is executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, to The Associated Press.
For three years, Frantz Desir, 36, has been an asylee in the U.S. Now he fears he could be next sent back, he told the AP.
“You see your friends who used to go to work every day, and suddenly — without being sick or fired — they just can’t go anymore,” he said, referring to the extreme current conditions in Haiti. “It hits you. Even if it hasn’t happened to you yet, you start to worry, ‘What if it’s me next?’”
TPS, designed to protect people from troubled countries who fear for their safety, is not a free pass to America, Abigail Desravines told NBC News earlier this year. She came to the U.S. after the earthquake. “You have to keep renewing, pay fees and live with the fear that it could end at any time,” Desravines said. “It’s not an easy path.”
