Trump Admin looking to end 7 year old Temporary Protection Status for Haitian community by looking into criminal background of 58,000 enrolled in program – PB/TK
Trump administration seeking criminal history of Haitians –
Haitian President Jovenel Moïse will personally ask President Donald Trump not to end a humanitarian program that has protected tens of thousands of Haitians from deportation.
“He hopes that it will be prolonged,” Wilson Laleau, Haiti’s former finance minister and Moïse’s chief of staff, told the Miami Herald on Tuesday. “He will officially ask that of the American government.”
The public plea comes amid growing fears of a new deportation push as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security acknowledged compiling evidence on the crimes committed by Haitians enrolled in the Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, program
The unprecedented move has sparked outrage among members of Congress and Haitian immigrant advocates, and sent shivers through Central American groups that also have found shelter in the U.S. under TPS.
“If it’s canceled for the Haitians, we know that it will be canceled for Hondurans, Nicaraguans and Salvadorans,” said Francisco Portillo, president of the Miami-based Francisco Morazán Honduran Organization. He announced his advocacy group will launch its own TPS letter-writing campaign for Central Americans on Sunday.
More than 200,000 Hondurans, El Savadorans and Nicaraguans have been allowed to live and work freely in the United States ever since Hurricane Mitch barreled through Central America in 1995. While the protection expires July 22 for Haitians, it expires in January 2018 for Hondurans and Nicaraguans, and in March 2018 for Salvadorans.
Continue to miamiherald.com article: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article149456234.html
