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Page 8 The Skanner March 21, 2018
News
By Maya King
Howard University News
Service
WASHINGTON — Rony
Ponthieux’s view of the
future changes by the
day.
A Haitian immigrant
living in Miami, Pon-
thieux has been working
in the United States un-
der the Temporary Pro-
tected Status,TPS, pro-
vision since 2010, when
he, his wife and two
children, then 3 and 10,
left Haiti in the wake of
the island’s devastating
earthquake. Receiving
it, he said, was “a miracle
for my family.”
Ponthieux now works
as a nurse and hopes
to eventually become a
nurse practitioner. But
the future changed last
year for him and more
than 250,000 Haitians
and Salvadorans when
President Trump decid-
ed to end the TPS that had
been in place under for-
mer president’s George
Bush and Barack Obama.
Now, he and the others
have until next year to
get permanent status or
leave.
“Before [the revocation
of his TPS], I was able to
work, to go to school, to
take care of my family,”
Ponthieux said, “”and I
was okay with that.”
It is unclear, he said,
what he will do if Con-
gress doesn’t create a
way for him and his fam-
ily to stay in the United
States, but he’s not giving
up.
“We’re still fighting,”
he said, “I’m fighting. I
feel that something will
happen.”
As Congress and Amer-
ica continue to debate
the plight of 700,000
children brought to the
country as infants by
their parents, so-called
“Dreamers,” lost in con-
versation is the fate of
about 50,000 Haitians
and 200,00 Salvadorans
were allowed to enter the
U.S. temporarily after
their countries were dev-
astated by earthquakes
in 2010 and 2001. They
will have until Septem-
ber 2019 to gain legal
immigrant status or be
arrested and deported.
Currently, a handful
of representatives have
proposed bipartisan leg-
islation that would grant
permanent legal residen-
cy to TPS migrants from
Haiti, El Salvador, Nica-
ragua and Honduras.
Their bill would grant
qualified migrants the
option of adjusting their
legal status from tempo-
rary to legal permanent
resident if they received
TPS status prior to Janu-
ary 2011.
The bill is backed by
Republican representa-
tives Carlos Curbelo and
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and
Democratic representa-
tives Frederica Wilson
and Alcee Hastings. All
represent districts in
central and south Flori-
da with large Haitian and
Salvadoran populations.
Wilson wrote a series
of tweets pointing out
what she said are the con-
sequences of ending TPS
for some.
“The reality is that in
six months, Haiti will
still be in no position to
absorb and aid 58,000
unemployed
people,”
Wilson wrote. “It will
still be recovering from
the 2010 earthquake and
the subsequent cholera
epidemic imported by
U.N. peacekeepers that
has killed 10,000.”
Rep. Elijah Cummings
(D-Baltimore),
rep-
resents a district with
nearly 300,000 Salvador-
PHOTO COURTESY OF HOWARD UNIVERSITY NEWS SERVICE
Plight of Haitians, Salvadorans Lost in DACA Debate
Haitians who came to the United States after a 2010 earthquake ravaged the country had their Temporary
Protected Status revoked by the Trump Administration. The have until September 2019 to gain legal
status, leave voluntarily or be arrested and deported.
an migrants. He echoed
Wilson’s sentiment.
“Rather than destroy
the lives of families who
have found refuge here
from natural disasters
and economic despair,
the Trump Administra-
tion should act to ensure
that individuals on TPS
can continue to work
and support themselves
and their families and
contribute both to the
United States and to the
reconstruction of their
home countries,” Cum-
mings said in a statement
after the initial White
House announcement.
Marlene Bastien, exec-
utive director of the im-
migrant advocacy group
Haitian Women of Mi-
ami, said her office has
been receiving calls from
families who are unsure
of their next steps. Bas-
tien said the revocation
has left her “shocked and
concerned.”
“We realized that the
termination wasn’t based
on the rules and the facts
on the ground, but prob-
ably on race,” she said.
“Immigration, after all, is
a racial issue.”
After
the
White
House’s initial decision
to terminate TPS provi-
sions in last November
and Trump’s “sh*thole
countries” comment in
January in reference to
Haiti and African na-
tions, organizers in Mi-
ami and the District of
Columbia — two cities
with large Haitian and El
Salvadoran populations
— have held a number of
protests.
They have also made
several trips to Wash-
ington, hoping to galva-
nize lawmakers who, ac-
cording to Bastien, “lack
courage” when it comes
to acting on immigration
legislation.
Two of those could
be Florida Sens. Marco
Rubio and Bill Nelson.
Bastien is urging Rubio
and Nelson to protect the
thousands of TPS recipi-
ents in Florida and to re-
mind the rest of the coun-
try of the importance of
Haitians and Salvador-
ans in the immigration
debate.
Rubio, wrote an opin-
ion article in the Miami
Herald lauding Haitians’
contributions to Flori-
da’s economy.
Read the rest of this story at
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