Arguing the termination of Temporary Protected Status for non-citizen Haitians in the United State was unlawful, harmful, out of its purview when proper steps are not taken, a group of attorneys, immigrant advocates and Haitians themselves are suing Donald Trump, the Department of Homeland Security and its secretary, former South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.
This is Round 2 for many Haitians who originally faced deportations during the first Trump administration. It is also Round 2 for many others.
The complaint was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court Eastern District of New York, the same court that in 2019 enjoined the first Trump administration’s 2017 attempt to end TPS status for Haitians.
“This court recognized years ago the executive branch does not have unbridled authority to end a country’s TPS designation on a whim,” the complaint says.
The same court is not the only similarity. Some of the same attorneys such as Miami's Ira Kurzban, who successfully battled against the Haitian TPS order from 2017, are back it with this new complaint.
"We're going to fight it. I believe and hope that we're going to win again as we did previously, because we're seeing the same thing repeat itself," Kurzban said. "...So yes, this is Trump Round 2."
Kurtzban believes Trump and his administration's decision to try to end TPS for Haitians prematurely and without following protocol is steeped in racial animus.
Trump's repeated statements, such as "They are poisoning the blood of the American people" are noted and footnoted in the complaint. As is the more recent and notable statements when he said, without evidence, that Haitians residing in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residences’ cats and dogs.
"Well, this looks like it's round two of the very same case that we had to bring years ago," Kurzban said. "...He engaged in racial animus toward Haitians. Made racially charged comments against them, said he was going to deport them before he even became president, and then sought to take away TPS from them."
The complaint isn't as steeped in civil rights as it is in statutory protocol and administrative authority. It claims the Department of Homeland Security violated procedures and its statutory authority when it rescinded a Biden administration TPS extension without any statutorily-mandate review and well before it was set to expire.
"And we're back in the same place we were before. And this shows a profound disregard to the legal system in the United States for our constitutional system," Kurzban said. " A judge has already determined that the very same actions that they're engaged in now were illegal, were inconsistent with the statute that protects people like Haitians and Venezuelans and others, and that it was all done through racial animus. And now we're back in the very same position that we were before."
Currently, non-citizens living in the U.S. from 17 different countries fall under a Temporary Protected Status, or TPS designation.
Since its creation in 1990, the government in charge has recognized disease, famine, armed-conflicts and natural disasters are some of the temporary and extraordinary conditions that make it too dangerous to deport non-citizens back home.
There are some 520,000 Haitians that fall under the TPS designation living in the U.S. at this time. If not successfully challenged they face deportation beginning this summer, well before their designation status is up for review and before possibly expiring in 11 months from now.
There are between 28,000 and 35,000 Haitians living in Southwest Florida, though not all are here under the TPS designation. That number is unknown.
Beatrice Jacquet Castor in ort Myers, one of the founders of the Haitian American Community Coalition of Southwest Florida, is optimistic but guarded with the news of the complaint brought by previously successful litigants.
She said she is troubled that Trump was re-elected after promising the largest deportation in American history — even sending non-criminals that fall under a TPS back to their troublesome homelands. like Haiti.
“I does give me a hope,” said Jaquet Castor “It gives me a hope that there is a small percentage of America that still has a heart -- that they still are human versus everything else.”
The complaint is on behalf of the Haitian Evangelical Clergy Association, a Service Employees International Union local and nine individual Haitian plaintiffs.
Eight of those individual plaintiffs are from New York. Because of their TPS designation, they lawfully work in various jobs. Some are in healthcare. One is a bookkeeper for Catholic Charities. Another a security guard. There is a bus driver and a Haitian journalist.
The sole non-New Yorker serving as an individual plaintiff is a certified nursing assistant from Port St. Lucie, Fla. She previously worked in the Palm Beach County School District as a behavior assistant for students with special needs.
Many Haitians in this country have been here for decades.
Under the Obama administration, Haiti was first designated for TPS in 2010 following an earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people. Cholera, the collapse of Haiti’s healthcare where only 37 percent of its health facilities in Port-au-Prince are fully functional, and gang-domination has made the situation go from very bad to worse, the complaint argues.
Designations are from 6 to 18 months before another review. Without a review, the extension of the designation is automatic, though not vice-versa.
The designation is granted to non-citizens from the country under review who are already in the United States at the time of the designation. All people falling under the designation are vetted and permitted to lawfully work in the U.S. Those who commit a single felony or two misdemeanors lose their designation status.
Congress placed no restrictions on the number of times TPS can be extended and re-designated so long as a mandatory review finds statutory conditions for designation do exist.
"Haiti, at the present time, is a extremely dangerous place to be in. Gangs are in control of more than 80% of the country, there are murders and rapes and horrible things happening, " Kurzban said. "...This is at a level of violence that is so troubling to the United States, that our embassy is not functioning in Haiti. We have told Americans not to go to Haiti. We've issued warnings that people should not step foot in Haiti at the present time, and yet we're more than willing to send people back into that misery and violent cauldron that exists in Haiti right now."
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