FOREIGN POLICY/HSS/TRUMP PEOPLE/JOHN KELLY: “…[R]ecognizing the depth of Haiti’s misery and the complexity of the rebuilding effort, the United States government extended a seldom-used lifeline to Haitians in the United States — temporary protected status, or T.P.S. The program allows people, like Ms. Versannes, who were visiting or were living here illegally before the earthquake to live and work in the United States until conditions back home improved.
More than 58,000 Haitians registered for the program, many in South Florida, which has the largest Haitian community in the country.
That safeguard could end soon. By Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly is expected to announce whether to let Haitians’ temporary protected status expire on July 22 or extend it again. (If he does nothing, it extends six months automatically.) By law, the decision should be based solely on conditions in Haiti — the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere — and its ability to absorb a large wave of returnees, not on immigration policy…
Haiti is still reeling not just from the earthquake [1/12/2010] but also from a cholera epidemic that killed 9,000, a long drought and last year’s Hurricane Matthew, the biggest storm to hit Haiti in 50 years. The Category 4 hurricane smashed Haiti’s southwestern coast and wiped out homes, roads, crops, livestock and fish stocks on the southern coast, exacerbating food shortages throughout the country.”
-Lizette Alvarez, “58,000 Haitians in U.S. May Lose Post-Earthquake Protections,” The New York Times online, May 20, 2017