Florida Republican says deporting Haitians would be ‘huge mistake’

The Guardian - Carlos Giménez, a Republican congressman from Florida, broke with the Trump administration on Sunday, calling on the White House to reconsider its push to eliminate temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitian migrants.

Returning about 350,000 Haitians to their chaotic, dangerous homeland would be a grave error, Giménez said, after the US supreme court’s ruling that the Trump administration could cut off temporary legal protections.

He said: “[TPS] is meant to safeguard those who are either fleeing countries that are failed states and are at risk of going back to them or countries that really can’t handle them right now, as is the case with Venezuela that has suffered a natural disaster.”

The ruling gave the green light to plans to end TPS for more than 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. TPS allows people to live and work in the US if the Department of Homeland Security deems their home countries unsafe due to war or natural disasters.