Abie Green
NYU Law Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law
New York, USA
This summer has been both very disheartening and incredibly enlightening. I have gotten the opportunity to learn from the Haitian community and those making efforts to help them fight the discriminatory decision made by the Trump administration. There were a number of roadblocks and it felt as though every step forward was two steps back. Trump has made the U.S. a hostile place for immigrants and it supremely difficult to help them.
My last major project for the summer has been working on writing a report about Haiti, TPS, and Trump’s immigration policies. To complete this, I have been researching court cases, the history of TPS, the history of US-Haiti relationships, immigration law, and doing interviews with those involved in TPS court cases and those with knowledge about the Haitian community’s needs and challenges. The interviews have been the most helpful, especially the insight I’ve gained from those who have recently been to or live in Haiti. They are able to see and articulate what our government has been willfully ignorant of: Haiti is not ready to take in returnees.
As I work on the report, I am struck by how much we are failing the human rights of TPS recipients in this moment. They were given a shaky status via TPS because inexplicably international, and national, laws do not include the fleeing of a natural disaster as a way to qualify for refugee status. Ironically, it is included in the basic dictionary definition if you were to search for it. It appears even the dictionary grasps this concept. Human rights law needs expansion to grow to fit situations such as these and needs to include vastly more protections for immigrants because it offers very little right now.
US law is being interpreted to exclude immigrants from constitutional protections going against the original intentions of the document in favor of xenophobic policies leaving little options for those being deported. The recommendations made at the end of my report have to be realistic about the current conditions and will point to any legal means available to allow people to stay. But it will also acknowledge that, no matter how wrong it may be, some people will be deported and we should prepare for that, too.