The Trump administration is moving swiftly to remove the roughly 350,000 Haitian immigrants living in the United States unlawfully since their protection from deportation expired last month.
Hundreds of Haitians residing in the Springfield, Ohio, region were contacted last week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and told to check in with immigration authorities at a local federal office, where many reported being outfitted with ankle monitors, according to lawyers who spoke with the Haitian Times.
Recommended Stories
The move comes days after hundreds of thousands of Haitians residing in the U.S. lost permits to temporarily work in the country, as well as an exemption from deportation under the federal temporary protected status program.
The sudden issuance of the tracking devices comes days after the Washington Examiner reported ICE was preparing to target Haitian immigrants on a national level, given that the country’s population in the U.S. was far larger than other TPS recipient nations.
Several organizations that work with Haitian TPS recipients across Ohio told various media outlets that ICE mailed out notices to appear in person at a local office last week.
Steve Forester, immigration policy coordinator for the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, said Haitian TPS recipients received a “DHS Call-In Letter” that required them to visit a regional ICE office, according to ABC News.
Viles Dorsainvil, executive director of Springfield’s Haitian Community Help and Support Center, told reporters late last week that Haitian immigrants were being summoned by ICE and released from their check-in appointments with the tracking devices attached to their legs.
“It is so humiliating to see parents, fathers and mothers, who have not been committing any crime now with some type of ankle bracelets on their feet,” said Dorsainvil, according to the local NBC News affiliate. “That has created so much fear.”
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said TPS recipients have had significant opportunity to leave the U.S. on their own terms.
“What we would say now is it’s closing time which means you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here. The good news is it’s not too late to get a $2,600 check and a free flight home,” DHS said in a statement.
“Temporary Protected Status is exactly that — temporary,” DHS said. “For too long, TPS has been allowed to function as a de facto amnesty program despite Congress never intending it to be permanent.”
The move by ICE is not unexpected. Normally, anyone who illegally crosses the border from Mexico into the U.S. is apprehended by Border Patrol then turned over to ICE, which will either fly the person back to his or her home country or, due to a lack of detention space or for other reasons, release the individual into the interior of the U.S. for the time being.
Immigrants released into the country are allowed to remain here while they wait for their day in court, where they must explain to an immigration judge why they violated federal law and entered the country illegally.
Hundreds of thousands of Haitians crossed the southern border illegally or were allowed to fly into the country from abroad during the Biden administration. After arriving in the country, many have applied for and been approved for TPS, a temporary status that further protects them from being arrested and deported while they await court proceedings.
TPS is imposed by the homeland security secretary on the basis that the receiving country is not in a stable position to accept back deported citizens from the U.S.
The Supreme Court’s recent decision in late June to allow the Trump administration to end TPS meant that overnight, 350,000 Haitians who had been protected by TPS would immediately be targets for deportation, including those who have applied for other protections such as asylum but had not yet been approved.
In light of the Supreme Court’s decision, lower courts are in the process of issuing final orders to terminate TPS, as ordered by the high court. Until then, it is unclear how long TPS recipients have until they must leave the country or face involuntary deportation.
An unspecified number of Haitians have sought asylum while in the U.S., which would allow them to remain in the country as legal immigrants and seek lawful permanent status in the future.
ICE has already been seen in one major Haitian community making arrests, according to Haitian American activist Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of nonprofit Haitian Bridge Alliance.
ICE OVERHAULS DRESS CODE FOR DEPORTATION OFFICERS, BANS JEANS AND T-SHIRTS: LEAKED MEMO
“Every hour I receive a call, a text that states we have heavy ICE presence throughout the community,” Jozef said in an interview last week. “We have seen most of the ICE presence, heavy ICE presence here in Brooklyn, New York.”
Ankle monitors are used under ICE’s Alternatives to Detention program, which allows the agency to track the GPS location of anyone outfitted with a tracker rather than holding that person in a federal detention facility for weeks or months while they go through court proceedings.
