Haitian New Yorkers are reeling from the end of a federal humanitarian immigration protection program that exposes more than 330,000 nationals from that country to possible deportation from the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe prevailing emotion is really fear,\u201d said Elsie Saint Louis, the executive director of Haitian Americans United for Progress, a New York City-based community services organization. \u201cSo parents are afraid to send their kids to school. People aren\u2019t going into work. People have been fired. People are not going to the doctors \u2013 our pregnant women are not going to the doctors. So there’s a lot of fear, fear of what the future holds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Relief under the temporary protected status program came to a screeching halt on Monday for some 40,000 Haitian nationals in New York state, according to data compiled by Phillip Connor, research fellow at Princeton University. The program\u2019s demise has been years in the making, but was hastened by a Supreme Court ruling<\/a> in June allowing a phased shutdown to proceed.<\/p>\n The Trump administration, contending the program has been abused and the protections are no longer warranted, has unwound<\/a> TPS for Syrian and Haitian nationals and has said it would do so for nationals from another dozen or so countries. The grace has long been extended to foreign nationals from countries deemed too dangerous to be returned to \u2014 because of war, disease, environmental disaster or some other \u201cextraordinary and temporary<\/a>\u201d condition.<\/p>\n New York state is home to one of the largest populations of TPS holders in the country \u2013 about 98,250 as of last March, according to the USCIS data. The departures are expected to have effects that extend beyond the TPS recipients themselves. Some healthcare providers, noting their reliance on immigrants who work as caregivers, have scrambled to fill positions already vacated by those who have been stripped of their work authorizations<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs can connect Haitian New Yorkers with free legal assistance if needed.<\/p>\n \u201cHaitian New Yorkers, Syrian New Yorkers — they are a part of the fabric of this city,\u201d Mamdani said at an unrelated press conference on Monday. \u201cWhile a judge stayed that decision until today [Monday], it still has left so many living in a state of permanent insecurity and anxiety\u2026 Our administration is not going to allow these communities to be terrorized on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n Efforts by Trump to end the TPS protections began in his first term, more than nine years ago. The Supreme Court\u2019s 6-3 ruling in June allowing the administration to unwind the program applies specifically to protections for Haitians and a much smaller number of Syrians \u2013 about 3,900 across the country. Nationals from a host of other countries<\/a> are expected to follow.<\/p>\n