Immigrants, community leaders and policymakers rallied at City Hall Plaza Thursday to urge the passage of a U.S. Senate bill that could extend temporary protected status, or TPS, for Haitian immigrants.
“We must have hope for ourselves, for a better country,” said Ruthzee Louijeune, a Boston City Councilor who is Haitian. “We must have hope for the TPS holders who would like to be here but cannot be here because of fear. We stand in their place and we stand in solidarity with them.”
Haitian immigrants will lose that legal status by Monday, July 27, following a June Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Trump administration to terminate TPS for status holders from Haiti and Syria. That could leave them vulnerable to detention and deportation.
The U.S. government first granted Haitians temporary protected status — an immigration status granted to nationals of disaster-stricken countries — after a 2010 earthquake killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced more than a million. The country still has a “Do Not Travel” advisory from the U.S. State Department “due to the risk of crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest, and limited health care.”
Today, Massachusetts has the second-largest Haitian population per capita in the country, and 19,000 Haitian people in the commonwealth have temporary protected status.
“Our Haitian community members, and all of our immigrants, and TPS holders are part of the fabric of our city,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said. “We cannot function as a society, as a community, as an economy, as a people, when the bonds of trust are ripped apart.”
Clara Raymond, a Haitian immigrant of 40 years, said she sees the effects of looming expulsions in her community in Dorchester.
“Everybody in panic,” she said. “Everybody scared — scared they’re going to lose their job. It’s not a good feeling.”
The bill before the U.S. Senate offers a glimmer of hope for Haitian TPS holders. It would designate Haiti for TPS through January 2029. A similar bill passed the House in April, but Republicans have blocked the effort in the Senate, making it unlikely to pass in the days before the Supreme Court’s order goes into effect.
“I wish, as the lawyer who has been litigating this case, that I could offer realistic hope that something will happen in the next few weeks, but that’s simply not the case, unfortunately,” said Andrew Tauber, who litigated in favor of Haitian TPS status at the Supreme Court.
Nicole Albert, the founder of the Gilbert Albert Community Center, an immigrant support nonprofit in Dorchester, has seen the fear of deportation seep into the English classes she teaches.
“At that center where I’m working, people are not coming,” Albert said. “They do not show up to church. They do not show up at class.”
Albert guessed that same fear was what kept Haitian TPS holders from the boisterous rally at City Hall Thursday , but that’s exactly why she said she showed up.
“I need to let everybody [know] that is hiding in the basement, under the bed, wherever — we are with you,” Albert said.
