Immigration advocates outraged over US’s stripping of legal status for Haitians, Cubans

WASHINGTON (CMC):

Caribbean immigration advocates and legislators in the United States on Friday expressed profound outrage over the Supreme Court’s stripping of the legal status and work permits for nearly 500,000 Haitians, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who came to the US through a humanitarian parole process, known as CHNV, under the previous Biden administration.

On Friday, the US Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to circumvent a district court’s ruling in stripping the lawful immigration status for the migrants.

The highest court in the US granted the Trump administration’s request to stay a district court order in Svitlana Doe v. Noem.

The Trump administration had asked the Supreme Court to take extraordinary action in blocking the district court’s preliminary injunction even before the First Circuit heard the case on appeal.

The news came after the Supreme Court issued a similar order in Noem v. National TPS Alliance, revoking Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for an estimated 350,000 Venezuelans.

“We are outraged to see the continued attacks on the families and communities, including those who are here with lawful status through the CHNV humanitarian parole process,” said Guerline Jozef, executive director and founder of organisational plaintiff Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA), a San Diego, California-based immigrant advocacy group.

“Once again, the Trump administration blatantly proves their disregard for the lives of those truly in need of protection by taking away their status and rendering them undocumented,” she added. “We have already seen the traumatic impact on children and families afraid to even go to school, church or work.

“This population has done everything the federal government has asked of them and received a rescinded promise from the US government in return,” Jozef continued. “This will be tremendously devastating for our communities, but we are strong and resilient, and we will continue to fight for them to be treated fairly under the law.”

Karen Tumlin, founder and director of Justice Action Center, said the US Supreme Court has “effectively greenlit deportation orders for an estimated half a million people, the largest such de-legalisation in the modern era.

“I cannot overstate how devastating this is: the Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to unleash widespread chaos, not just for our clients and class members, but for their families, their workplaces and their communities.

“While we grieve with these communities today, we remain resolved in our fight for the dignity they deserve,” Tumlin continued.

Anwen Hughes, director of legal strategy, Refugee Programmes at Human Rights First, said the Trump administration is “acting arbitrarily and unlawfully to attempt to terminate the lawful status of half a million people en masse, and we will not stand for it”.

Murad Awawdeh, New York Immigration Coalition’s president and CEO, said: “These individuals did everything right by following the procedures that were set out for them to escape extreme hardship and instability in their home countries. Now, at a moment’s notice, they’ve had their lives and their livelihoods upended for no other reason than one administration’s desire to meet some arbitrary and outrageous deportation agenda.

“None of these actions will make America great for anyone,” he added. “We are outraged, and every person who calls this country home should be similarly outraged.”