The Trump administration is ending a temporary residency program that has allowed some 60,000 Haitians to reside and work in the United States since a powerful earthquake in 2010 in Haiti. In fact, the program will be extended one last time until July 2019 to give Haitians time to prepare for their return to their homeland, according to the announcement made Monday by the Department of Homeland Security.
An announcement earlier this year that the status was being re-examined has resulted in an influx of thousands of asylum seekers at the US-Canada border, particularly in Quebec, catching the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau by surprise.
As a deadline for the program came on Thursday, federal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said he believed earlier that Canada would be notified if the US decided to withdraw temporary protection status for some 60,000 people. Haitians living in the United States.
Mr. Goodale argued that the resources required for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and border officers to handle an influx of refugee claimants were in place, as well as contingency plans for various scenarios.
The influx of asylum seekers had led to a Canadian campaign with Haitian communities in the United States, and two federal Liberal MPs traveled to Miami and New York late last week and over the weekend. end to revive these efforts.
A third deputy, the Haitian-Canadian Emmanuel Dubourg, is due to travel to New York on Tuesday, and to meet with members of the mayor’s office and groups of the diaspora.
Mr. Dubourg said that the recent announcement that Canada will accept close to one million immigrants over the next three years was presented in a Haitian media as if the country was opening its doors to one million immigrants this year. It has also been relayed as proof of the Haitians’ welcome.
Mr. Dubourg said he had contacted the newspaper’s editorial staff two weeks ago to clarify things, after realizing that the article had been shared hundreds of times on Facebook.
“I’ll be there to inform them: be careful before making a decision,” he said in an interview Monday, before the announcement of the Trump administration.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has strongly criticized the “cruel” decision of the Department of Homeland Security, which will affect “many families” in the big city. “We have to fight against this heartless decision, ” he wrote on Twitter.
Trump’s record of cruelty grows. Temporary protected status is a lifeline for many Haitian families living in NYC. We must fight this cold-hearted decision. https://t.co/iSwYG2vIyh
— Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) November 21, 2017