John,
For years, Haitian families have lived in the United States under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) with the clear expectation that their presence here was lawful, recognized, and protected. They built lives, worked legally, paid taxes, raised children, and contributed to their communities in good faith. Now, that promise is being yanked away, in an act of state-sponsored cruelty.
Haitian TPS is set to expire, and when it does, tens of thousands of Haitian residents who have done everything the law asked of them could lose work authorization overnight and face immediate detention and deportation. People who were invited to stay legally would suddenly be treated as criminals.
Even now, signs are emerging that ICE is preparing a crackdown in Haitian communities -- particularly in Springfield Ohio, South Florida, and South Dakota. This is the now too-familiar pattern: create a deadline, manufacture “illegality,” then unleash enforcement officers trained in anti-immigrant, racially-charged ideology to terrorize entire neighborhoods.
In Springfield, Ohio, community organizers report verified information that ICE plans to arrive in early February and remain for at least a month, timed precisely with the termination of TPS. The intent is unmistakable: to turn a bureaucratic expiration into a campaign of ICE-driven fear and violence in the streets.
Send a direct message to your Representative urging them to sign the discharge petition and protect Haitians under Temporary Protected Status -- before ICE turns law-abiding families into their next targets.
Faith leaders are already preparing for the worst -- conducting rapid-response trainings, converting churches into sanctuary spaces, and organizing food deliveries for families afraid to leave their homes. That is not what lawful governance looks like. That is what it looks like when a community is bracing itself for an occupying force.
In South Florida, Haitian residents are receiving messages urging them to “self-deport,” warning that failure to comply will result in arrest, deportation, and permanent residency bans. These families are not criminals in hiding. These are lawful residents being hunted after the rules were changed on them.
Targeting Haitians in this way is not accidental. ICE officers are recruited and trained under a framework that treats Black immigrants as disposable and migration itself as a moral failing deserving punishment. The brutality we are seeing is the predictable result of that ideology.
There is still time to stop this injustice. A discharge petition in the U.S. House can force a vote to protect Haitians’ protective status, even if Speaker Mike Johnson refuses to act. If a simple majority of Representatives sign the petition, the House must move forward with a vote.
Tell your Representative to sign the discharge petition and protect Haitian TPS -- before law-abiding families become targets.
Thank you for standing up for fairness toward immigrants who are in the country legally and contributing to their communities.
- DFA AF Team
