Designation of Haiti for Temporary Protected Status
Floor Speech
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1689 to designate Haiti for temporary protected status, or TPS, and I thank Representatives Pressley and Gillen for their incredible tenacity and leadership in building the bipartisan coalition needed to get this bill to the floor. This is a hopeful moment for so many across the country to take a positive step forward on immigration policy in America after so much darkness.
TPS was established with broad, bipartisan support in 1990 to provide people who are already in the United States a safe haven when their home countries are devastated by armed conflict, natural disaster, or other extraordinary conditions. TPS is built on the simple idea that America should not force people back to deadly and life-threatening conditions, a principle that has guided both Republican and Democratic administrations for decades.
Today, the Trump administration is dismantling this longstanding commitment to our core values, attempting to end TPS for countries where the conditions are still incredibly dangerous.
One country with which the President has seemed obsessed since his first term is Haiti. The President has called Haiti a S-hole country and cruelly attempted to end its TPS designation during his first term. Luckily, that was stopped by the lower courts, but the threat remains.
In less than 2 weeks, the ability of the Trump administration to end TPS for Haiti will be heard by the Supreme Court. Today, over 350,000 Haitians have TPS. It would be unconscionable to send them back to Haiti, an action that would lead to people's deaths. That goes against everything this country is supposed to stand for.
For years, Haiti has been dealing with significant political turmoil that has resulted in instability all over the country. Our own State Department has issued a Level 4: Do Not Travel advisory for Haiti. They say that individuals should not travel to Haiti due to ``kidnapping, crime, terrorist activity, civil unrest, and limited healthcare.'' The country has been in a state of emergency since March of 2024. Terminating TPS means the United States of America is forcing people to return to real and imminent harm, even death.
However, this isn't just about what is right and wrong for Haitians or for other TPS holders, Mr. Speaker. It is also about what benefits Americans. Despite all the lies and misinformation spread by this administration and its rightwing echo chamber, TPS broadly, and Haitian TPS holders specifically, are good for our communities and our economy.
TPS has allowed hundreds of thousands of people to work legally and to contribute to our economy. Haitian TPS recipients, in particular, regularly work in industries that are currently experiencing severe labor shortages, like construction and hospitality and healthcare.
In healthcare alone, Haitians are the sixth largest group of workers, making up one in five nursing assistants, personal care aides, and home health aides. These workers keep our economy running, helping businesses that struggle to fill jobs. They pay taxes, support local businesses, and contribute billions of dollars to our economy every single year.
Each year, TPS holders from Haiti who reside in the U.S. earn $3.9 billion in total household income. They pay a total of $983.9 million in taxes, including $600.8 million in Federal taxes and $383.1 million in State and local taxes, and they hold $2.9 billion in spending power.
Many Haitian TPS holders have lived in the United States for many years. They have followed our laws, paid their taxes, and demonstrated their commitment to this country. Instead of stripping them of legal status and sending them back to dangerous conditions, we should be providing them with a path to long-term stability.
Donald Trump ran on a false promise, that he would get rid of the ``worst of the worst,'' but instead his administration has been moving forward their real goal: Ending all legal immigration to this country. Just a few days ago, the conservative CATO Institute published a report showing that Trump has cut legal immigration by 2.5 times as much as undocumented immigration since coming into office this term.
Unlawful immigration had already fallen substantially, even before Trump took office, because the Biden administration expanded the legal pathways that people had to be here with legal presence, work and contribute. However, instead of maintaining that, Trump and Stephen Miller have done everything possible to destroy all legal immigration to this country, including eliminating TPS.
H.R. 1689 provides a glimmer of hope to immigrant communities across the country, starting with Haitians. It tells them that we value their work and contributions to our country. It tells them that we won't send them to their deaths. It tells them that America still welcomes the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes,'' and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. JAYAPAL. Gillen), the sponsor of this bill.
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Ms. JAYAPAL. Pressley), who has been such a leader on bringing this bill to the floor.
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Ms. JAYAPAL. Wasserman Schultz), a distinguished member of the Appropriations Committee.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this measure to restore protections for our Haitian-American neighbors, and I am grateful for Congresswoman Pressley and Congresswoman Gillen's leadership on this issue.
Haiti is in collapse. That is not in doubt. Gangs control 90 percent of the capital. Millions are internally displaced, and most of the population needs emergency food and medicine.
The U.S. supports a peacekeeping force in Haiti, so it is hard to argue that it is dangerous enough to send in the military, yet safe enough to send civilians back to.
Haitian TPS recipients are vetted for any criminal history and came here to flee the same violence at home. TPS holders are on work permits, pay taxes, pay into Medicare and Social Security, and get nothing in return.
It helps no one to take 200,000 people out of the workforce, while taxpayers foot the bill for detaining and deporting people who haven't committed a crime.
This is an economic disaster with the enormous taxpayer and moral cost of deporting hardworking people into chaos when they pose no threat.
Every dollar we spend to rip apart law-abiding families with legal status--and I know that is a fact that my friends on the other side of the aisle refuse to acknowledge because TPS is a legal status--every dollar taken is a dollar not spent to go after real criminals.
I visited the Everglades detention camp last week, and the horrors I saw strengthened my resolve. We can't stuff law-abiding people into cages for months with no trial and then send them to unsafe conditions.
This week, I was proud to lead an amicus brief with Ms. Pressley and 185 congressional Democrats to urge the Supreme Court to reject Trump's illegal termination of TPS for Haitians.
My Haitian neighbors in Florida are an indispensable part of our community, economy, and culture. It infuriates me that President Trump shamelessly peddles lies about Haitians to promote racist, collective punishment. Haitian Americans deserve better. We all deserve better than an administration more concerned about hitting Stephen Miller's ICE quotas than bringing down costs.
If we care about our seniors, our parents, our aunties, and our grandmothers; if we care about the patients in hospitals and nursing homes; and if we care about making sure that our economy is strengthened by incredible Haitian workers who are part of the backbone of it, then we will vote ``yes'' to save jobs in your community, ensure that hospitals have nurses, ensure that elderly parents can access care, and to stand up for our Nation's values.
Mr. Speaker, in closing, temporary protected status was created to ensure that our country is never forced to send someone back to harm's way. So long as dangerous conditions exist in someone's country of origin, TPS is meant to authorize them to remain here until that danger has passed.
Our government recognizes the real and present dangers right now in Haiti. Nonessential personnel have been evacuated from the country, and the State Department continues to tell Americans not to travel to Haiti. The government instructs people who must go to Haiti to establish ``a proof of life protocol'' with their family members, to make funeral plans, and draft a will before they travel to the country.
Yet that same government expects us to believe that it is safer for Haitians to return to Haiti. They warn us about the imminent risk of death that comes with traveling to Haiti but have no qualms of sending 350,000 people who have been living in this country and contributing to their communities right here at home.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments later this month on whether the administration's termination of TPS was lawful. With the bill before us today, we can send a strong bipartisan message to the court that this body recognizes the reality that Haiti remains deeply unsafe, is in no way prepared to accept hundreds of thousands of people returning, and that the TPS designation for Haiti should remain in effect.
Now, Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot said on this floor today. I haven't challenged every single thing, but what I want the American people to know is there is a lot of misinformation being spread about Haitian TPS holders, about TPS holders in general, and about immigrants.
Someone earlier talked about how the American people don't want immigrants in this country. That is absolutely not true. There is a record-high support for legal pathways and a general belief that immigration is good for this country. A record high 79 percent of Americans now say that immigration is a good thing for the United States, and only 30 percent of Americans actually want to see decreased levels of demand. That is in part because this administration promised to deport only the worst of the worst and then went out and kidnapped and disappeared people, incarcerates children, and is committing cruelty, including murdering U.S. citizens in the streets.
The reality is that Haitians are contributing to communities across this country: 21 percent of Haitians in healthcare, 19 percent in retail, 15 percent in education and social services, 15,000 Haitians in agriculture, and 14.5 percent of Haitians are small business owners who are generating over $1.5 billion in revenue.
We love to take all of the services that immigrants provide to this country and then establish a level of cruelty toward those same immigrants. That is not right.
Mr. Speaker, as one of the very few naturalized citizens to serve in this country, it is difficult for me to constantly listen to the anti- immigrant rhetoric that comes from the other side, the cruelty that comes from this administration, when I myself know what this process is. I have been through it.
The reality is immigrants are contributing. Haitian immigrants who are here are working in their communities. It is why there is also a record level of support for continuing Haitian TPS. The public polling on TPS for Haitians: 90 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents, and almost half of Republicans support that.
I am grateful to the Republicans who came forward to sign the discharge petition to bring this bill to the floor. I am grateful for any Republicans who vote today for this bill because what the American people want is to respect the contributions of immigrants across this country who are helping to build our communities. That is what Haitians are doing for us right now, and it is exactly why I hope all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will support this bipartisan, critically important bill.
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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
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