MIAMI (WSVN) - Immigration advocates in South Florida held a briefing to voice their concerns for Haitian families at risk of losing temporary protected status.
Tuesday morning’s discussion, organized by the Florida Immigrant Coalition, focused largely on how the potential ending of TPS would impact children should they be forced to return to Haiti with their families.
Participants in the virtual discussion called this a critical moment.
“For many of them, the United States is the only home that they know. Their futures now hang in the balance,” said Thamara Labrousse of Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center. “Many of these children as stated, are U.S. born, they have been growing here, they speak English, they attend our schools, for many of them uprooting could mean entering an education system in Haiti where instruction is often conducted in French, a language that many of them do not speak.”
The speakers described the dangerous living conditions and prevalent sexual violence in the country.
“Haiti, as I said, and it was cited earlier, is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a child and that hasn’t changed since I said that, and I think it’s a catastrophic idea to think about forcing people back to that kind of situation,” said William G. O’Neill, an independent humans rights expert from the United Nations.
“Since 2018, really, for about eight years now, we haven’t really had a full regular school year in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area,” said Dave Fils-Aime. “And many of our youth have been forced to leave their homes, among the 1.4 million displaced people, I’m one of them.”
Advocates said that ending TPS could force children to return to a country gripped by gang violence, where kidnappings, hunger, and forced recruitment into gangs are rising.
“In 2025 alone, thousands of incidents of gender based violence were reported, including over 44,000 cases in the first half of the year, with the majority involving sexual violence against women and girls. All gang members frequently use rape and sexual assault as tools of intimidation and territorial control,” said Kindarlie Pierre. “Nearly 5,000 people were killed in gang violence in less than a year, and much of the violence is concentrated in Port-au-Prince.”
Immigration attorney Patricia Elizee told 7News last month that the expiration of the legal protections from TPS could disrupt the lives of many in the community.
“Everyone who is currently on TPS and is a Haitian national will go back to either the status that they had before, or they will be here illegally,” she said. “They will not be able to work, they will not be able to get a driver’s license, they will not be able to function like they used to.”
As TPS continues to be a point of contention with the Haitian community, the Supreme Court has now agreed to review a push by the Trump administration to end the program once and for all for roughly 350,000 Haitians living in the United States.
Haitians were first granted TPS back in 2010 under President Barack Obama after a massive earthquake hit the country. It was extended by President Joe Biden’s administration.
And, while the Trump administration has tried to end TPS several times before, all efforts have failed in the lower courts.
The advocates who took part in Tuesday’s discussion hope that the justices will take their concerns into consideration.
The Supreme Court is likely to hear those arguments in April, with a decision expected later by the end of June.
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