TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) – Faith leaders gathered outside of Senator Rick Scott’s Tallahassee office for a prayer vigil on Tuesday.
The group took time to call for the protection of Haitian immigrants.
Deportation flights from the U.S. to Haiti started back up this year, even as the State Department warns Americans should not travel there.
That led a group of about 20 pastors to call on Florida’s two senators to support a bill to extend Temporary Protected Status for Haitians.
Clergy members weren’t allowed into the federal building in Tallahassee as security told them nobody was at Scott’s office to receive them.
Instead, they made their voices heard on the sidewalk.
“Senator Scott, Governor Scott was a good governor,” Rev. RB Holmes, Jr., pastor at Bethel Missionary Baptist Church said. “But once he became senator, he isolated himself from people and causes such as this.”
Cynthia Pierre said she has family in Haiti where conditions are deplorable, and the U.S. State Department has a “Do Not Travel” advisory.
“And to mention that there’s rarely any suitable jobs or work, it’s sad. It’s sad,” Pierre said.
She said there simply isn’t enough infrastructure to deport the 200,000 Haitians currently in Florida who recently lost their Temporary Protected Status.
“Those who qualify to get under a permanent status get that opportunity so that our economy can continue to thrive,” Pierre said. “It’s hurting us all the way around. This really was not thought through at all.”
The clergy called for a specific action: Sign onto a bill the U.S. House already passed to extend Haitian TPS until 2029.
“If we’re saying as a country they ought not travel to Haiti, then why send them back to Haiti? Where’s the compassion? Where’s the love?” Holmes said.
We have reached out to a spokesperson for Sen. Scott and have not yet heard back.
The clergy also called on U.S. Senator Ashley Moody to back the bill. Since it already passed the House, it would need to pass the Senate and then be signed into law by President Donald Trump.
Odds are long, however, as the executive branch decides which TPS designations to end in the first place.
The U.S. Supreme Court previously ruled some legal challenges to the end of TPS weren’t allowed, and many district judges declined to re-impose an injunction based on alternative arguments.
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