Détails

Catégorie : Les Toutes Dernières

Création : 15 Aout 2026

Jacqueline Charles - Updated August 1, 2026 11:47 AM
Miami Herald
The congressional delegation visited Port-au-Prince on July 27, 2026. U.S. Embassy Haiti
When U.S. Rep. Ami Bera decided to join a bipartisan congressional delegation to Haiti this week — the first such visit by U.S. lawmakers in seven years — the California Democrat and physician was prepared to see dire conditions based on the reports coming out of the Caribbean country and briefings he has received as a member of the House Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees.
But as he and his colleagues traveled through gang-ravaged Port-au-Prince with heavily armed U.S. Embassy protection, bumping along rutted roads, past makeshift encampments and congested streets, the devastation proved even more striking than he had anticipated.
What he saw and later heard in meetings with officials, Bera said, reinforced his opposition to the Trump administration’s decision to end deportation protectionsfor more than 350,000 Haitian in the U.S.
“The conditions we saw on the ground were pretty horrific,” he told the Miami Herald on Friday.
Bera was one of two Democratic and two Republican House members who traveled to Port-au-Prince. The bipartisan delegation was led by Florida Republican Rep. Brian Mast, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Florida Republican Kat Cammack and Illinois Democrat Jonathan Jackson also joined the trip, along with staffers from other congressional offices.
Bera attempted to ascertain whether conditions in Haiti have improved enough to justify ending Temporary Protected Status — a standard Congress set to justify termination of TPS when lawmakers established the humanitarian program in 1990, and one critics have accused the Trump administration of disregarding.
He also wanted to determine if Haiti, which is facing widespread hunger and the closure of thousands of schools and most hospitals in the capital due to gang violence, could absorb the return of thousands of its nationals.
“This is not the right time to be sending people back to Haiti,” the congressman said. “You’re sending folks into a chaotic situation.”
During the visit, at least three senior Haitian government officials, including the chiefs of staff at the defense and education ministries and an accountant in the planning ministry, were among the latest victims of gang kidnappings. Among those also held by the gangs are Russian and Turkish nationals who were abducted from a cargo ship on May 3. A 6-year-old girl who is a U.S. citizen also remained in captivity after 46 days, despite multiple ransom payments.
On Friday, as Haitians received phone alerts warning them to remain vigilant, police said two other foreign nationals had also been abducted for ransom.
TPS holders deported from the U.S. “are going to be ripe targets for kidnapping as well,” Bera said. “This would be a disaster to send folks back right now.”
During the visit, the delegation met with interim Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, who told lawmakers that while TPS is supposed to be temporary, the timing is wrong to send Haitians back.
The congressman said he specifically asked Fils-Aimé about the northern city of Cap-Haïtien after senior State Department official Michael Kozak testified during a congressional hearing that deportees were being returned there, rather than to Port-au-Prince, and implied the city could absorb the influx.
“The prime minister was like, ‘No, Cap-Haïtien cannot take any additional folks. It’s not a city that was built for a million-plus individuals, and you’re just creating a situation over there,” Bera said.
The delegation also met with Defense Minister Mario Andresol, who led the Haiti National Police for seven years and is now trying to rebuild the army, and the acting director general of the Haiti National Police, André Jonas Vladimir Paraison.
Both spoke of the challenges confronting Haiti’s security forces as armed gangs expand their grip to other regions.
All of this, coupled with the limited capacity of the newly established Gang Suppression Force, makes the termination of TPS worrisome, said Bera, who also met with the force’s leadership along with colleagues.
“You want to be optimistic,” Bera said of the new gang-fighting force, “but they’re still kind of ramping things up and getting up to full speed. So that’s going to take some time.”
Bera acknowledged the administration may not listen to his appeal on TPS. On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin announcing that TPS protections were over, even though the federal judge whose injunction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court has not yet issued an order formally lifting her stay. Despite that, Bera said he still plans to reach out to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
“I get it, temporary is temporary, but it betrays our values,” Bera said. “That isn’t who we are, to send these folks into a chaotic situation where they could get killed, they could get kidnapped. They have no place to live.”
He also plans to press colleagues in the Senate to support a bill that would extend TPS for Haitians by three years. The measure passed in the House with Republican backing.
Haiti is just 400 miles off the coast of Florida, he added, and if U.S. policymakers want to avoid a migration crisis and give it a chance of success, then “we should do this in a very systematic way.”
This includes allowing the country’s elections, scheduled for Dec. 13 to take place and giving a new government time to start the rebuilding.
“Give the [gang-fighting force] time to fully constitute its 5,000 plus force. Continue to train up a Haitian national police, a Haitian military,” Bera said. “Pass the legislation, extend TPS to 2029, and give it three years.”
This story was originally published July 31, 2026 at 3:56 PM.

Détails

Catégorie : Les Toutes Dernières

Création : 15 Aout 2026

The Trump administration and courts are at odds over whether 350,000 Haitians have officially lost humanitarian protections, but employers are already letting workers go.
Silvia Foster-Frau
July 31, 2026 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
The Department of Homeland Security alerted employers this week that it had officially ended humanitarian protections for 350,000 Haitian immigrants, triggering mass layoffs that threaten to disrupt summer travel and destabilize an array of essential institutions and industries up and down the East Coast and across the Midwest.
Nursing homes terminated hundreds of workers, including nursing assistants, dietary aides and housekeepers, industry and union leaders said. At airports including those in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Boston, contractors cutscores of Haitian workers, including janitors, cabin cleaners and wheelchair attendants, according to union leaders at Service Employees International Union 32BJ.
At Florida schools, landscapers, bus drivers and other staff were fired. And in New York City, dozens of security guards were terminated only to be rehired because of confusion around their eligibility to continue working, union officials said.
The tumult comes about a month after the U.S. Supreme Court granted the Trump administration permission to cancel the humanitarian program, known as temporary protected status (TPS), potentially stripping permission to live and work in the United States from as many as 1.3 million immigrants from Haiti, Syria and a dozen other countries.
The high court said the program for Haitians, one of the largest groups affected, could end on Monday. But attorneys for Haitian TPS holders said the protections should remain in effect until a lower court that had blocked the Trump administration from ending the program formally recognizes the Supreme Court decision.
Earlier this week, DHS informed employers that it considered the “Haiti TPS designation … terminated, effective” immediately, and businesses have been laying workers off ever since despite no order implementing the Supreme Court ruling from the lower courts.
In a statement, a DHS spokesperson said that “activist lower court judges are openly defying the Supreme Court on this, but the end result will be the same. Haitians with TPS cannot and will not be able to stay.”
The statement added: “For too long, TPS has been allowed to function as a de facto amnesty program despite Congress never intending it to be permanent.”
Geoffrey Pipoly, who represented the Haitians at the Supreme Court, accused the administration of sowing confusion instead of winding down TPS provisions in an orderly way.
“What we’ve seen from [the administration’s] behavior in the past month … is that they are trying to create conditions that are just not worth it for employers to keep people employed,” Pipoly said.
Food service, retail, warehousing, health care and long-term elder care are expected to be pummeled in some cities where many Haitian TPS holders have lived legally for more than a decade. The Obama administration first granted TPS to Haitians in 2010, after a major earthquake destabilized the country, killing hundreds of thousands of people.
“We do think the Supreme Court decision is going to decimate industries that people really count on because they’re largely serviced by immigrants. That’s true of airports,” said Roxana Rivera, assistant to the president at SEIU 32BJ, which represents cleaners, security guards and airport personnel on the East Coast. “It’s going to be much more difficult to fill these essential jobs.”
As the firings rippled through major metropolitan areas such as Miami and New York and smaller cities such as Columbus, Ohio and Allentown, Pennsylvania, newly unemployed Haitians frantically lined up care for their children, downsized into single-room rentals and sheltered in place, fearing a new wave of immigration enforcement focused on their community, advocates said.
On Monday evening, Haitian workers at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport burst into tears as they were asked to turn in their badges. Marlene, 47, a single mother who has worked as an airport janitor for 12 years, said she has been sick to her stomach.
“I am panicking. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep,” said Marlene, who spoke on the condition that she be identified by first name only. “My kid is wondering if he goes to school, will I be there when he comes home?”
The Broward County Aviation Department, which operates the airport, did not respond to questions about the status of impacted employees. But the department said 132 Haitian TPS holders worked there as of Monday, and that contractors who employ them have “‘uninterrupted service’ clauses to ensure continuity of operations.”
Helene O’Brien, the Florida director of SEIU 32BJ, said the union has lost at least 140 other workers, mostly janitors, due to previous Trump immigration policies.
Some TPS holders from Haiti are seeking new protections, including under asylum law, while others are holding out hope for litigation or legislation that could change the fate of the program — though experts say that is unlikely.
White House Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Miller has said that Haitians who lose status should be deported: “It’d be crazy for us to say that Haitians couldn’t live in Haiti. It’s their country,” he told reporters last month.
Opponents of the terminations say Haiti is not safe and warn that the expulsion of 200,000 working Haitian TPS holders from the labor force will lead to declines in economic activity and tax revenue in local economies.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) told CBS News this week that Haitians helped revive the city of Springfield, where Trump falsely accused Haitian immigrants of eating cats and dogs during the 2024 presidential campaign. DeWine called the decision to end TPS a “mistake.”
“These are people who have helped Springfield really come back,” DeWine said. “The Haitians … came there because there were jobs that were not being filled by other people.”
In the days leading up to the cancellation, powerful business groups pushed the administration to delay implementation of the Supreme Court ruling and establish a pathway for workers to regain legal status. The National Restaurant Association and the Florida Health Care Association were among several trade groups that sent letters to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin warning of looming operational disruptions.
“Many affected employees are long-serving, legally authorized workers who are central to restaurant operations,” the National Restaurant Association said in a letter to Mullin. “Their departure could remove a substantial share of the local hospitality workforce overnight.”
This month, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) introduced legislation to restore TPS for Haitians, warning the nation would otherwise face “a health care disaster.”
Some nursing homes have cut ties with scores of employees in recent days, while others have downsized. One facility in Staten Island raised its sign-on bonus from $2,000 to $6,000 to attract workers, while others shut down building wings and took beds offline. Still others explored recruiting replacement workers from high schools, said Katie Sloan, president of LeadingAge, an association of nonprofit aging service providers.
“To lose that many employees in one fell swoop is incredibly disruptive,” Sloan said. “And it’s destructive to the residents who have been close to these caregivers for years.”
Augustine, 30, is among those who stand to lose protective status. She and her mother fled Port-au-Prince after the 2010 earthquake destroyed their home.
Now Augustine — who spoke on the condition that she be identified only by first name — is a caregiver at Cabrini of Westchester, a 304-bed nursing home overlooking the Hudson River in Dobbs Ferry, New York. Most mornings, she is the first person to greet nine residents, waking them, bathing them, brushing their teeth and helping some eat breakfast and use the bathroom. Most of their families don’t visit regularly, she said; one calls her “my daughter.”
When she contemplates leaving her job, Augustine — whose shifts were canceled this week in anticipation of her work permit expiring — worries about these residents. But she said she would rather leave on her own terms than have immigration agents knocking on her door, so she and her mother have decided to begin packing as soon as the loss of her work permit is clear.
Asked if she had any parting words, Augustine said: “Thank you, America.”
In Florida, where nearly half of Haitian TPS holders reside, the Palm Beach County School District laid off nearly 20 Haitian workers, including bus drivers, janitors and cafeteria workers, school district and union officials said. “All School District employees must be legally authorized to work in the United States,” Steven King, a Palm Beach County School District spokesperson, said in a statement.
Afifa Khaliq, president of the SEIU Florida Public Services Union, which represents those workers, said she has been having conversations “that you would never want to have with a parent,” telling them to “make a plan so that your children can at least stay in safe environments while you may have to go back to Haiti.”
One 58-year-old Haitian woman with TPS in West Palm Beach, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she fears being targeted by ICE, was fired from two full-time jobs this week. A single mother, she worked as both as a certified nursing assistant in a senior living facility and at a separate job in medical records, to pay for her two kids’ college tuition.
“I can’t plan ahead for this news. We live paycheck-to-paycheck,” said the woman, who has been in the United States since the 2010 earthquake.
“There is nowhere to go in Haiti,” she said, adding: “There are gangs living in my house in Port-au-Prince.”

Détails

Catégorie : Les Toutes Dernières

Création : 15 Aout 2026

WASHINGTON, dimanche 28 juin 2026 (RHINEWS) – Le gouverneur républicain de l’Ohio, Mike DeWine, a exhorté dimanche le président Donald Trump à reconsidérer sa décision de mettre fin au Statut de protection temporaire (TPS) accordé aux ressortissants haïtiens, quelques jours après que la Cour suprême des États-Unis a autorisé l’administration à supprimer cette protection.
Interrogé sur une chaîne de télévision américaine, le gouverneur a reconnu que la plus haute juridiction du pays avait confirmé la légalité de la décision fédérale, tout en estimant qu’elle ne constituait pas, selon lui, « la bonne décision ».
« Je pense que c’est une erreur. Je demanderais au président de reconsidérer cette décision », a déclaré Mike DeWine.
Le gouverneur a souligné que les conditions de sécurité en Haïti demeurent extrêmement préoccupantes et qu’il serait dangereux d’y renvoyer des personnes bénéficiant jusqu’à présent du TPS.
« Je ne pense pas qu’il soit sûr, à l’heure actuelle, de renvoyer des gens en Haïti », a-t-il affirmé, évoquant l’instabilité persistante et la violence qui frappent le pays.
Mike DeWine a également insisté sur la contribution économique des Haïtiens installés dans son État. Selon lui, plusieurs milliers d’entre eux occupent des emplois essentiels, notamment dans les secteurs de la santé, de l’industrie manufacturière et d’autres activités confrontées à une pénurie de main-d’œuvre.
« Ces personnes travaillent dur. Elles occupent des emplois dont nous avons besoin. Elles contribuent à notre économie », a-t-il déclaré.
L’Ohio, en particulier la ville de Springfield, accueille depuis plusieurs années une importante communauté haïtienne, dont de nombreux membres vivent et travaillent légalement aux États-Unis grâce au TPS.
Les déclarations du gouverneur interviennent quelques jours après que la Cour suprême a autorisé l’administration Trump à mettre fin aux protections contre l’expulsion dont bénéficiaient environ 350 000 ressortissants haïtiens ainsi qu’environ 6 000 Syriens. Cette décision ouvre la voie à la révocation de leur autorisation de séjour et de travail, sous réserve des procédures administratives prévues par le gouvernement fédéral.
De son côté, le secrétaire américain à la Sécurité intérieure, Markwayne Mullin, a indiqué que les bénéficiaires du TPS devraient soit obtenir un autre statut migratoire leur permettant de demeurer légalement aux États-Unis, soit préparer leur retour dans leur pays d’origine. Il a également annoncé que le gouvernement était disposé à offrir une aide financière et logistique aux personnes choisissant un retour volontaire.
Les déclarations de Mike DeWine marquent l’une des critiques les plus importantes formulées par un gouverneur républicain à l’égard de cette politique migratoire de l’administration Trump, alors que le débat se poursuit sur les conséquences humanitaires et économiques de la fin du TPS pour les ressortissants haïtiens vivant aux États-Unis.

Détails

Catégorie : Les Toutes Dernières

Création : 15 Aout 2026

As TPS lapses for hundreds of thousands of Haitians, nursing homes, home health agencies and families brace for the loss of trusted caregivers
by AP News Jul. 31, 2026

Overview:
A Supreme Court decision allowing the Trump administration to end temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of Haitians is rippling far beyond immigration courts. Across the country, nursing homes, home health agencies and families fear losing caregivers who help older and disabled Americans with daily life. Employers have struggled to fill jobs for nurses' assistants, home health aides and other caregiving roles for years. Immigrants make up a sizable share of such employees. And Haitians with temporary protected status, or TPS, have flocked to such jobs.
NEW YORK (AP) — Who will be there each morning with Solange French’s eggs at breakfast, and who will be ready with soup or fish at lunch? When the 91-year-old needs help in the shower, who will rush to her side, and when it’s time for a doctor’s appointment, who will take her? Who will do the laundry or buy the groceries or clean the house?
Until now, the answer has been a doting home health aide from Haiti named Martha Nelson. But with the Supreme Court sanctioning a White House immigration crackdown, Nelson’s permission to stay in the country appears likely to be yanked within days, leaving French worried.
“She’s with me all the time,” says French. “Life would be impossible.”
As the Trump administration unwinds years of protections for hundreds of thousands of people from Haiti, twin populations of vulnerable people find themselves in the crosshairs: caregivers in jobs to which those immigrants have flocked, and the older adults and disabled people who rely on them.
Around the U.S., care homes and home health agencies are bracing for the loss of workers with TPS, which stands for temporary protected status, even as they continue to reel from other immigration policy changes that have squeezed an already short-staffed industry.
For businesses, it is a predicament that could hurt bottom lines and tax remaining workers. For their clients, it threatens to upend every aspect of their lives.
Businesses in industries from hospitality to long-term care scramble as TPS work permits expire without extension
“They have become like family,” says Katy Sanchez, who lives in a group home for disabled people in Nanuet, New York, run by The Arc Rockland, which stands to lose 19 caregivers with TPS, on top of 20 others it lost in immigration changes last year. “If they are forced to leave, it would be devastating.”
Supreme Court ruling paved the way
The Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration last month, saying it could end temporary protected status. The ruling specifically pertained to 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians, but immigration advocates and legal observers say it could be applied to a broader group of 1.3 million people from 17 countries.
The justices’ move has been met with weeks of confusion. Immigration officials subsequently granted several extensions to TPS holders that carried through Monday. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued guidance Wednesday affirming TPS was over, though some attorneys and labor unions have argued work authorization remains intact until lower courts lift an injunction.
The Department of Homeland Security made light of the TPS expiration, referencing lyrics from a 1998 hit song: “It’s closing time, which means you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”
Fearful they might be in breach of the law, some employers have begun terminating TPS holders, to the dismay of their clients.
Anna Fischbein grew accustomed to visits to her home in Sunny Isles, Florida, from the same kindly Haitian health aide every week for the past 10 years. But Jewish Community Services of South Florida terminated the aide along with 17 others when their TPS lapsed.
“I lost not only a lady working for me,” the 87-year-old Holocaust survivor says, her voice broken by sobs. “I lost a friend.”
Facilities scramble to come up with replacement workers
Around 1 in 5 workers in the U.S. is foreign born, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but immigrants are overrepresented in caregiving roles. Among home health aides, for example, one-third are immigrants, according to PHI, a nonprofit focused on the caregiving workforce.
In lives upended by age or disability, a cherished caregiver is a lifeline. For someone living in their own home, they may be the last line of defense before institutionalization. For those in a care facility, they may be their strongest advocate, who notices subtle changes before anyone else, ensures small comforts like dollar-store word search books, and brings a sense of humanity to the humiliation of being incontinent.
“They are the first people they see when they wake up in the morning and they’re the last ones that they see before they go to bed,” says Simone Smith, vice president of human resources at Cabrini of Westchester, a nursing home in Dobbs Ferry, New York, where eight Haitians with TPS await word of their fate.
Like similar facilities around the country, Cabrini is prepared to scramble to secure replacement staffers from nursing agencies and plead with remaining workers to take overtime shifts.
Cabrini’s workforce is about 75% immigrant. Among those with TPS, Smith senses “almost a hopelessness.”
A Haitian who loses TPS faces an unbearable choice: Attempt to stay in the U.S. and find underground work, tiptoeing through life with fear that authorities will eventually find and remove them. Or return to a country so plagued by gang violence and poverty that many believe it would amount to a death sentence.
“I’m afraid all the time,” says a Haitian man working at a Brooklyn nursing home who asked for anonymity because of concerns for the safety of himself and his family. “I pay tax to the country. I’m a good person. … All I want is to work. When you work, you are a person.”
Families wonder what they will do
Outside a simple brick house in Queens, Nelson stands guard as French steps through her door. On the porch, you might mistake the two for old friends, their bond as much an illustration of what is at risk as it is of how much things have changed.
The women made the same journey, from Port-au-Prince to New York, four decades apart.
French was drawn here in 1970 by the potential opportunities she saw. She built businesses as a hairdresser and seamstress. Her late husband made his way as an electrician and contractor. They bought their home. Their children got good educations. They believed they achieved the American dream.
Nelson came after an earthquake flattened Haiti in 2010. At home, she ran a butcher shop, but after arriving in New York she found work in caregiving roles. She began working for French about three years ago after French fell and broke her hip. Nelson, now 69, has been with her nearly every weekday since.

As Haitian TPS nears an end, families are asking who will care for their children, whether to sell their homes and whether they can survive what comes next
Both women felt welcomed by the U.S. when they arrived. But French is saddened to see how views on immigrants have evolved.
“America is a good country,” French says, “but it has changed.”
Nelson brings leftovers, tends to French’s chores and is a source of companionship. They watch the news together and talk in Haitian Creole about their families. On weekends, Nelson calls to make sure French has gotten up from bed and nags her to eat.
“On my days off, I think about her,” Nelson says.
French says Nelson has become like family. Nelson agrees, saying she sees French as if she’s her own mother, a show of affection and the source of the pair’s one ongoing dispute.
“You’re not like my daughter,” French protests. “You’re like my sister.”
For now, the two continue their routine, knowing each shift may be Nelson’s last. She keeps a copy of her work authorization zipped in a black cloth pouch that she carries everywhere, in case she is stopped. Each Sunday, she sinks to her knees in church, praying for an answer. She worries for herself and for French.
“It makes me feel depressed,” Nelson says. “It could be difficult for her without me.”
NEW DATA REVEALS THE IMMENSE HUMAN AND ECONOMIC COST OF TERMINATING HAITI’S TEMPORARY PROTECTED STATUS
– The Bridge https://share.google/OXpfUezFn4M2PrdjH
Key Findings of the Fact Sheet:
Haitian TPS holders generate an estimated $5.9 billion for the U.S. economy each year and annually pay $805 million in federal and payroll taxes and $755 million in state and local taxes.
200,000 Haitian TPS holders are already in the U.S. workforce, working in critical industries, including 15,000 agricultural workers, 13,000 nursing assistants, 8,000 caregivers, and more.
There are 50,000 U.S. citizen children who have at least one parent who is a Haitian TPS holder. If TPS is terminated, an estimated 25,000 of them would be pushed into poverty when Haitian TPS holders lose work authorization.