MALVEAUX: Haiti, TPS and the Politics of Punishment

Haiti is not an abstraction. Haiti is a nation whose pain has too often been treated as policy collateral, a people whose labor is welcomed when needed and whose lives are discounted when convenient. Now, with the Supreme Court allowing the Trump administration to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Syrians, more than 350,000 Haitians who have lived and worked legally in the United States face the possibility of deportation to a country the world knows is in crisis.

Temporary Protected Status is not a gift. It is a recognition of reality. It says that when a country is overwhelmed by violence, disaster, political collapse or humanitarian emergency, deportation is not simply enforcement. It is endangerment. To strip Haitians of this protection now is to pretend that paperwork matters more than human life.

Haiti is facing one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises. Armed groups control much of the country, violence has disrupted ordinary life, hunger is widespread, and humanitarian assistance remains far short of the need.

So what kind of country sends people back into that? What kind of country says to people who have built lives, paid taxes, raised children, staffed hospitals, opened businesses, cared for elders, cleaned rooms, cooked meals, driven trucks and strengthened communities: your labor was welcome, but your life is disposable?

Cruelty is not an accidental byproduct of this policy. Cruelty is the point.

Haitians have long been punished for being Black, free, defiant and inconvenient. The first Black republic in the world was born of revolt against slavery, and the nations that profited from slavery never forgave Haiti for proving that enslaved people could liberate themselves. France extracted a ruinous indemnity. The United States occupied Haiti. International lenders, foreign governments and domestic elites have repeatedly treated Haiti as a problem to manage, not a sovereign nation to respect; a profit center, not a proud and sovereign nation. The present crisis cannot be separated from that long history of extraction, intervention and contempt.

Now that contempt appears in the sterile language of immigration law. “Temporary” becomes the excuse. “Protected” becomes the promise broken. “Status” becomes the thin legal thread holding families together.

The Supreme Court’s ruling did not create the hatred of Haitian migrants, but it gives official permission to act on it. We have seen the ugliness before. Haitians have been accused of disease, criminality, dependency and disorder. They have been stereotyped, detained, deported and scapegoated. During the 2024 campaign, Springfield, Ohio, became a national symbol of anti-Haitian hysteria after false claims about Haitians eating pets were amplified for political gain. That lie was not just ridiculous; it was dangerous. It turned neighbors into targets.

Springfield tells another story. Haitians came there to work. They filled jobs. They opened businesses. They joined churches. They enrolled children in schools. They helped revive a struggling city. After the court’s ruling, many now face fear and uncertainty. Even Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, reportedly called ending Haitian TPS a mistake, pointing to the conditions in Haiti.

That matters. Because the question is not whether Haitians belong in Springfield, or Boston, or Miami, or New York, or Washington, D.C. The question is whether the United States will acknowledge that Haitians already belong here because they are already here, already contributing, already woven into the fabric of our communities.

The numbers tell part of the story, and they are overwhelming. But they do not tell the whole story. Behind every number is a family deciding whether to pack, hide, fight or pray. Behind every number is a child who may know no home but the United States. Behind every number is an employer wondering who will show up for work, a landlord wondering whether a tenant can stay, a congregation wondering whether its members will disappear. Behind every number is a disabled elder wondering whether the care attendant will come to bathe her, feed her and help her live with dignity.

TPS holders are often described as if they are temporary people. They are not. They are people with temporary legal protection, many of whom have been here for years or decades because the conditions that displaced them have not been resolved. Temporary status can become a permanent limbo. It allows people to work but not fully settle, to contribute but not fully belong, to live under the shadow of a government decision that can turn a lawful worker into a deportable person.

That shadow is now darker.

We should be honest about what this is. It is not simply immigration enforcement. It is not simply administrative discretion. It is a choice to make vulnerable people more vulnerable. It is a choice to destabilize families and communities. It is a choice to ignore Haiti’s suffering while benefiting from Haitian labor. It is a choice to act as if Black migrant lives are expendable.

The United States has legal power. That has never been in doubt. The deeper question is whether it has moral sense. Haiti has been punished for its freedom, exploited for its labor, burdened by debt, occupied, stereotyped and scapegoated. Sending Haitians back into danger continues that long, ugly pattern.

But cruelty does not have to have the last word. Congress can act. The administration can halt deportations. Communities can protect their neighbors. Churches, unions, employers, advocates and people of conscience can refuse to let Haitian families disappear quietly into deportation machinery. At minimum, this country should extend TPS, halt deportations to Haiti and create a path to permanence for people who have already built their lives here. The opposite of cruelty is not sentiment. It is solidarity, organized and insistent.

A humane nation would not send people back into danger. A just nation would repair some small part of the damage it has helped create. A grateful nation would recognize Haitian workers, families, caregivers, students, entrepreneurs and neighbors as part of its own story.

Cruelty may be the point of this policy. Resistance must be the point of our response.

Malveaux, a former college president, is an economist, author and commentator based in Washington, D.C.