Vilès Dorsainvil, president of the Haitian Community Help and Support Center, said during a webinar held by advocacy group Red Wine and Blue Tuesday night he felt “relieved” and he and others have told people to “continue to lay low” and keep making plans, because the ruling was not “a final victory.”
“We cannot give ourselves the luxury of living as if everything is normal,” Dorsainvil said, pointing to an ever-changing federal situation.
He said Haitians should be able to continue to work through their TPS work authorization, as per the judge’s ruling.
Dorsainvil has family still living in Haiti, where he said the international airport in Port-au-Prince has not been in operation for almost a year. His brother used to live near the U.S. embassy and had to flee due to gang violence, he said.
“Immigrants’ life is not for the weak because you have to carry on with checking on your family back home on a daily basis to know if they’re OK ... it’s a condition where there is not respect for law. (Haiti) is a country of lawlessness,” Dorsainvil said. “Somebody can come to you and do any harm to you and cause any harm to you and they just go without any investigation or without any follow-up.”
Dorsainvil said young people in Haiti, lacking solid future prospects in the country, do not have a “Haitian Dream” like U.S. youth have an “American Dream.”
Haitians are tired of running and fleeing and have now become “scapegoats” in the U.S., he said.
Katie Paris, founder of Red Wine and Blue, celebrated the judge’s decision but said with the case likely headed to the U.S. Supreme Court as the Trump administration has vowed, “the fight is far from over.”
The judge wrote in an opinion that U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem didn’t follow proper procedures taking conditions in Haiti into account when terminating TPS.
Senior Pastor Carl Ruby of Central Christian Church, who has been one of the Haitian community’s biggest advocates, said seeing massive support at a faith event supporting Haitians Monday followed by the court decision was “the best day of my life” apart from things involving his family.
“There’s people coming together, hundreds of pastors who never worked before together all standing together saying very clearly, whatever our faith is, God loves immigrants and he tells us that we are to love immigrants,” Ruby said.
Lynn Tramonte, Ohio Immigrant Alliance executive director, celebrated the ruling in a statement but advocated for a more permanent solution.
“This 11th hour reprieve is, of course, welcome. But people can’t live their lives like this, pegging their families’ futures to a court case. Haitian-Ohioans have literally saved their own lives and their kids’ lives, multiple times,” Tramonte said. “They did the hard part. The least this country can do is honor their strength and contributions by giving them a permanent home. That is what many in Ohio are advocating for, as was made clear in Springfield today.”
‘Betrayal’
Mark Sanders, an area resident who has been outspoken about concerns related to the increased Haitian population in Springfield, told the News-Sun his immediate reaction to the ruling was a feeling of “betrayal.”
“These liberal judges, they keep injecting themselves into areas where they really don’t have the authority,” Sanders said, adding that he thinks the decision will be overturned on appeal.
Sanders, who may become a Clark County commissioner if one of two Republican parties in the county is successful in appointing him, added he feels “terrible for both sides,” saying Haitians have been “given false hope” and “lied to,” but have had “ample opportunity to return back on the taxpayers’ dime and then reapply to come back to this country legally.” He said he believes Haitians have been “set up to fail.”
Haitian immigrants with TPS are considered to be in the country legally, as TPS is a legal status.
Sanders acknowledged that if he were in a similar position to Haitians who have fled dangerous conditions, “I would do everything in my power to give my family the best life I could,” though he expressed doubt about the severity of the conditions in Haiti.
According to the United Nations, more than 1.4 million Haitians have been internally displaced due to gang violence and political instability. Haiti’s last elected president was assassinated in 2021 and the country is now being run by a transnational council, which is supposed to step down Saturday, a date selected in 2024 under the assumption the country would have held elections for a new president, according to the Associated Press.
Gangs control an estimated 90% of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, and they have seized swaths of land in the country’s central region.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
More than 8,100 killings were reported across Haiti from January to November last year, “with figures likely underreported owing to limited access to gang-controlled areas,” according to the U.N. report.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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