IJDH applauds Secretary Mayorkas’s December 5 announcement that DHS will redesignate Haiti for TPS, an announcement which recognizes that current conditions in Haiti make it impossible for the United States to safely deport people there now.  See here and the DHS announcement here.

Eventually eligible to apply under redesignation will be Haitians, and only those Haitians, who have been in the United States since at least November 6 or earlier.  No one not already in the United States by November 6 will be eligible.

And no one can apply yet, even if they arrived before November 6, because DHS must first publish a Federal Register notice outlining application procedures.  As the DHS announcement states, “A soon-to-be-published Federal Register notice will explain the eligibility criteria, timelines, and procedures necessary for current beneficiaries to re-register and renew Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) and for new applicants to submit an initial application under the redesignation and apply for an EAD.”

DHS is not expected to publish the Federal Register notice for many weeks or even a few months.  (Last year, it took about three months for them to publish the  notice.)

Haitians in the community should therefore beware of unscrupulous practitioners saying they can apply for them now.  They cannot do so!

IJDH applauds the collaborative efforts of allies, hundreds of organizations, and dozens of congressional leaders who advocated for DHS to redesignate Haiti for TPS.

But the redesignation announcement underscores an important contradiction in U.S. policy. The dangerous Haiti conditions which made it necessary are largely due to our failed foreign policy of propping up Haiti’s illegitimate, corrupt, and gang-affiliated regime, which Haiti’s people abhor.  This anti-democratic State Department policy continues to give Haiti’s regime effective veto power over the aspirations of Haiti’s people for democracy and stability.

While we applaud DHS’s December 5 redesignation announcement, we renew our calls for the State Department to stop propping up the regime in Haiti which made it necessary.