By G. Dunkel
June 5, 2025
The 2010 earthquake that was centered on Léogâne, Haiti, a small city southwest of Port-au-Prince, created such devastation that President Barack Obama decided to grant all Haitians residing in the United States at that time, or those who were seeking refuge, Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
TPS allows recipients to live, study or work in the U.S. for 18 months without fear of deportation. It can and has been extended. In the 15 years since the 2010 earthquake — between hurricanes, new earthquakes, food insecurity, the dissolution of schools and health care systems and increased political violence — over 3.5 million Haitians have emigrated. The 500,000 Haitians who made it to the United States received TPS. That’s about 5% of Haitians — mainly of working age — on TPS.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem shortened the period of TPS for Haitians on Feb. 20, 2025, effectively ending it on Aug. 3, 2025. She partially vacated a prior decision to extend Haiti’s TPS, reducing it from 18 months to 12 months.
The Dominican Republic, another major destination for Haitian immigration, also has a very active and severe Haitian deportation program.
Asserting that these decisions of Secretary Noem were done without proper review and are driven by Trump’s racial animus, a coalition of community groups is seeking a temporary injunction blocking them. “The termination of TPS is motivated by President Trump’s long-standing racial animus towards Haitians and other immigrants from countries with predominantly Black populations, not the law or the facts,” said Roxana Rivera, with 32BJ SEIU, a part of this coalition. “We are filing this suit to stand up for the Haitians in our workforce and our communities and to stand against racist bullying and the undermining of the rule of law.” (Haïti Liberté, March 19, 2025)
There have also been demonstrations by concerned groups in southern Florida.
Effects of deportations on Haitian economy
Deporting over 500,000 Haitians back to a country on the edge of societal collapse — where every last ounce of the effort of workers, every last resource is seized and exploited by some of the cruelest capitalists known — will be a psychological, economic and political disaster for those who are deported.
It will also have a huge, devastating effect on the Haitian economy.
According to the World Bank, 23% of Haiti’s Gross Domestic Product comes from remittances — money sent to people living in Haiti from people living abroad. The Haitian Central Bank has figures showing that 75% to 80% of the remittances Haiti gets come from the U.S.
When the people who send them are deported from their jobs, these remittances will stop. Haiti’s economy cannot survive such a devastating loss.
Councilperson Larry Celaschi holds up a glass-blowing pipe that his grandfather used for 50 years at a glass plant in Charleroi, a town in Pennsylvania which has currently benefited from Haitian workers there.
Effects of deportations on the U. S. economy
The United States has a much bigger economy than Haiti, so losing 500,000 workers won’t create the same level of devastation, but it will certainly be felt in some sectors and many communities.
Looking through online employment services oriented to the Haitian community one finds jobs in food processing, including hard, dirty jobs in butchering; construction jobs like spackling; health care jobs including cleaning and washing — jobs that are hard to fill.
A radio station in Charleroi, a town in southwest Pennsylvania, has a long web posting which points to how jobs for Haitian immigrants at Fourth Street Barbecue, a frozen-food factory just outside of town, helped reinvigorate the town, which was suffering from rust belt decline. (tinyurl.com/3v4up6dv) The termination of TPS will be devastating to the economy of Charleroi and hundreds of towns like it across the U.S.
