TPS for Haitians: Much more is needed

For years, and especially since the four devastating hurricanes that struck Haiti in August and September of 2008, progressive organizations and individuals in the United States have been urging the Homeland Security Department to grant Temporary Protective Status to Haitians.

TPS for undocumented residents in the U.S. allows them to live and work here legally.

After the earthquake, the calls for TPS grew stronger. For example, the first thing the TransAfrica Forum recommended the U.S. government do to help Haiti on Jan. 13 was “suspend Haitian deportations and grant TPS.”

TransAfrica’s statement went on to say, “Since January 2009 U.S. immigration judges have issued deportation orders to over 30,000 undocumented Haitians. The Department of Homeland Security should immediately halt the arrests of these deportees and grant Temporary Protected Status.” (transafricaforum.org)

A few days later Homeland Security announced that it would grant Haitians TPS. Many hailed this as a victory. WNYC public radio, the City University of New York Citizenship and Immigration Project and Rep. Gregory Meeks — who represents a congressional district in Queens with a large number of Haitian Americans — sent out press releases and set up Web pages, town hall meetings, lists of volunteer lawyers and fundraising events to encourage applications for TPS.

While much of the work done by community-based organizations is in Creole and directed to the Haitian community, most of these press releases and Web pages are in English and directed to the broader community of progressives engaged by the human catastrophe in Port-au-Prince. Broadly speaking, this campaign is designed to give the impression that the U.S. government is doing something substantial for Haitians.

While Haitians, and undocumented members of other communities, need and deserve TPS, there are aspects of the TPS program for Haitians that make it far less than a full “victory.”

According to a briefing that Alejandro Mayorkas, director of the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Service, gave on Jan. 15, it will cost $470 for an individual to apply for TPS. An advanced parole application, which can be submitted at the same time, costs an additional $305. “Advanced parole” allows an individual with TPS to leave the U.S. and return.

Applicants would have to prove Haitian citizenship, which is difficult to do in practice, as the USCIS often rejects Haitian passports and birth certificates as invalid. Applicants would have to prove that they lived in the U.S. before Jan. 12, which means they would not be allowed to bring family members from Haiti to the U.S.

While the USCIS would not necessarily share the information they demand for TPS with Immigration and Custom Enforcement, still it is possible that in the future ICE could access this information, pictures and fingerprints in particular.

The generally accepted figure for the number of undocumented Haitians living in the U.S. is somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000, which means that this program would cost the Haitian community tens of millions of dollars, money that will go to the U.S. government, not to the reconstruction of Haiti.

The reaction in the Haitian community to TPS was quick to come. Mariso Laza in the Jan. 20-26 issue of Haïti-Liberté points to the demonstrations after demonstrations that the Haitian community has had over years demanding the right to TPS, but claims that the version of TPS offered is “simultaneously a bad joke and a diversion.”

It is “a diversion,” writes Laza, because “the way it has been offered blocks any criticism of the crimes that [U.S.] American imperialism has committed in Haiti” while members of the community are waiting for it to be granted.

It is “a bad joke” since it costs so much, is guaranteed for only 18 months and will take a long time to be processed. In contrast, a similar program in Canada, which has a large Haitian community centered around Montreal, is free and permanent.

Haitians certainly need and deserve TPS, but what they’ve been offered is insufficient.