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haiti
Without Haitians There is No Collective Liberation
Two Haitian immigrant advocates chart out a path for what a truly liberatory policy toward Haitian and other Black immigrants could look like.
Feb 26, 2026
We started Black History Month with a critical—though potentially momentary—win for Haitian immigrants, specifically those with Temporary Protected Status. Although the Trump administration has appealed the decision, the current pause of the termination of TPS for Haitians has been a moment of reprieve for our community.
In this period of polycrisis, this victory also demonstrated the continued power of community organizing. But, in order to ensure this win is sustained and pushes us toward Black liberation and collective justice, we have to amplify the monumental role of Haiti and Haitians in our shared struggles for equity and justice in the US—past, present, and future. There’s a great deal for us to learn from Haiti and Haitians about collective liberation.
We felt momentary relief with the court ruling on TPS, but the unease we carry was not able to dissipate altogether because we know this government is undeterred from flouting the legal system. Living in limbo is already difficult for TPS holders, but like with all immigrant communities, there is the heightened fear of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its inhumane and life-threatening tactics, which we see vis-a-vis their modern-day recreations of slave catchers.
Furthermore, Haitians live with another kind of fear—the fear of being both invisible and hyper-visible, but never fully human. This characterization has been deliberate and by design; a punitive response to Haiti’s successful revolt against slavery—the first in the world—and what it set in motion for Black and other colonized people across the world.
When we say we must continue to fight, we mean all of us. Anyone who says they are for justice and collective liberation must meet us on the streets and in the courtrooms.
The paradox of hyper-visibility paired with erasure is part of a larger pattern of anti-Blackness in this country. White supremacists tend to treat Haiti as symbolic of everything they intentionally mischaracterize or misrepresent about Black people, as a pretense to spew racialized anti-Black hatred. The public imagination they craft around Haiti is carefully curated to dehumanize us and to stoke fears around Black people rising up once again. We are an enduring threat to white supremacy and racial capitalism, which is why we continue to be punished and targeted as a people and a country.
This public imagination is exactly what the Trump administration leveraged to spread sensational lies that many Americans went on to accept as factual. It is why our community faces higher detention and deportation rates, and sees disproportionately lower rates of being granted asylum. And, it contributes to why philanthropy has not prioritized sustained giving to Haitian organizations. Even though we face unceasing attacks from the administration that have stripped over half a million Haitians of their statuses, targeted them repeatedly for halts on adjudication for almost all forms of relief, and imposed the most severe forms of travel bans for both non-immigrants and immigrants, we are not seeing a commensurate response to support us from the philanthropic community, to give us a fighting chance against these attacks.
Every day, there is a reminder of our invisibility. Language justice for Haitians is often an afterthought. We regularly have to advocate to immigrant rights organizations and grassroots organizing groups to provide Kreyòl interpretation for webinars, trainings, and materials that are directly applicable to hundreds of thousands of Haitians. Even though Haitian immigrants are the second-largest population with TPS, language access is usually not extended to Haitian TPS holders.
We are routinely rendered invisible by all factions of US society—policymakers, philanthropy, media, and even progressives—and yet we become hyper-visible in moments of crisis, political convenience, or scapegoating. We saw this hyper-visibility in the response to Haitians arriving in Del Rio, Texas, when Border Patrol agents were caught chasing Haitian refugees on horseback in 2021 and in the last presidential election when Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were thrust to the center of Republican political theater vis-a-vis the circulation of blatant misinformation designed to incite anti-immigrant sentiment.
Being left out of—or misrepresented in—mainstream narratives of immigration and American identity has real-life consequences. We feel it in the lack of services tailored to our community, insufficient language access, and more. We see it when we’re treated as an afterthought in immigrant rights advocacy and grossly underfunded compared to other immigrant communities—multiplying the unseen labor of the few Haitian migrant groups that exist. According to the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, “Black migrant justice groups received less than 2% of all funding for the movement, 0.04% of funding explicitly granted for Black communities in general, and overall less than 0.01% of all foundation grants given during 2016-2020,” which is why initiatives like the Black Migrant Power Fund—launched to address these gaps—are so crucial in this moment.
Our exclusion has also led to the distortion and flattening of our identity–we are often seen as victims with no agency, our significant present-day contributions have largely gone unnoticed, and centuries-old imperialist policies by the US and France continue to go unchecked despite playing a big role in the ongoing injustices in Haiti.
We reject this single story of victimhood and believe there is an urgent need to platform the pivotal leadership and perspectives of Haitian migrant rights’ leaders advocating for their communities across the region, which is why the Hemispheric Network for Haitian Migrants’ Rights was started. Haitian leaders’ initiatives and organizations are significantly under-resourced, yet they are undeterred in their battle against the anti-Blackness that knows no borders and confronts Haitians at every turn in their migration journeys.
In terms of contributions to the US, Haitian TPS holders alone contribute $5.8 billion to the US economy and pay $1.5 billion in taxes, but this is rarely considered in discussions about Haitian immigrants. Moreover, in our recent report from Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, we shared that through the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV) Parole Program, a two-year humanitarian parole program, CHNV immigrants contributed an additional estimated $5.5 billion to the US economy annually through spending alone.
The February 3 verdict offered momentary relief for the 350,000 of us who have TPS status, but we must continue to fight tooth and nail for humanitarian protection. It remains to be seen whether the appellate or Supreme Court will grant the administration’s emergency appeal, and strip so many people of merited and necessary protections. Legislative efforts to protect TPS continue, with a discharge petition proposed by Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) with over 155 co-sponsors.
When we say we must continue to fight, we mean all of us. Anyone who says they are for justice and collective liberation must meet us on the streets and in the courtrooms as the next phase of our fight starts up to protect not only TPS, but to advocate for all forms of policy and practice that ensure Haitian migrants can be safe and thrive. Philanthropy must provide sustained support to our organizations because supporting Black migrant communities is a moral and social imperative, particularly for any institution that espouses a commitment to racial justice.
But above all, we must push back against white supremacy and fascism by finally recognizing that how we treat Haiti and Haitian immigrants, and really any group of people who occupy this paradoxical position of invisibility and hyper-visibility in our society, is a barometer of our commitment to collective liberation.
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Federal Immigration Agents Won't Take Their Masks Off After Mardi Gras
ICE and the Border Patrol are concealing their faces to try and protect themselves—from accountability.
Feb 17, 2026
Mardi Gras arrives, and masked federal agents continue their lawless violence under the false flag of "law enforcement." Meanwhile a federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration's latest anti-Haitian effort because, among other things, its racist foundation violates the law.
All of that is why phrases from Haitian singer Manno Charlemagne (1948-2017) have been coming to mind.
In one song, Charlemagne praises those who "unmask the wrongdoers" (demaske malpwopwete). In another, he scoffs at the bands of thinly disguised paramilitary cowards (yon bann fov mal maske). He might have been riffing on the Declaration of Independence's complaint about a king who sends "Swarms of Officers to harass our People," quoted last month by the federal judge who ordered the release of a 5-year-old boy and his father from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention in Texas.
Manno, as everyone called him, was Haiti's best-known singer-songwriter and a leading activist in his own country's fight for democracy. I was fortunate to have met him when I worked at Miami's Haitian Refugee Center in the 1990s, and we later translated some of his songs from Haitian Kreyòl to English.
Behind the masks are not just racists, but bullies, and bullies are cowards.
Manno's 1989 "Lamayòt" was written for Carnival, which in Haiti as elsewhere brings new political songs. As Edwidge Danticat explains, "A lamayòt is a mysterious box whose contents are known only to its owner, and which others can see only after they have paid some kind of price. In politics, lamayòt can refer to, among other things, trickery, a sleight of hand, and broken promises."
In "Lamayòt," Manno mocks the military oppressors who promote themselves and make up their own rules, thinking that guns and the power to intimidate make them right. But their masks and smirking, sings Manno, are the only flag they carry, and people see right through their pathetic Mardi Gras disguise: "Lan fè grimas se drapo nou pote... Pou mwen nou pa menm madigra k mal maske."
Despite a push from activists, and with Democrats following their lead, agents are sure to keep their masks on. Yes, it's to protect themselves—from accountability. ICE and the Border Patrol have always aspired to lawlessness, and under President Donald Trump they have moved further than ever in that direction.
In California this month, a judge ruled against a state prohibition on federal agents hiding behind masks, but only because the law doesn't also apply to state law enforcement. In response, State Sen. Scott Wiener has said he will push for a law that covers all officers. Wiener's statement could be from a Carnival song: "We will unmask these thugs and hold them accountable." The Field Office Director for ICE Enforcement and Removal (ERO) in San Francisco had told the court that the law should be struck down because"DHS does not intend to comply" with it.
Agents claiming to enforce the law—even when they actually do so—are violating federal law by refusing to identify themselves: "At the time of the arrest, the designated immigration officer shall, as soon as it is practical and safe to do so, identify himself." The city of Santa Ana has actually passed a resolution suggesting that the federal government follow federal law.
The Trump administration also claims that federal agents can give themselves permission to break down your door and check your papers or abduct you, though that's not how "permission" or warrants work. The Associated Press reports that the latest in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "ruses" includes the use of false license plates in violation of Minnesota law, and the impersonation of local police, construction workers, and utility workers.
Behind the masks are not just racists, but bullies, and bullies are cowards. That's why their bosses keep saying how brave they are while whining about their victimhood. In the first Trump administration, DHS Secretary John Kelly complained that his agents "are often ridiculed and insulted... and frequently convicted in the court of public opinion on unfounded allegations." In November, a deputy chief of Border Patrol told a California court that agents wear masks and "remove their badges, nameplates, or unique identifiers" because "incidents across the nation have created an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty" for them.
A Burmese-American named Ba Zan Lin spent 18 years "living under dictatorship and tyranny" in his native country. Last year he told a Buffalo (New York) audience, writes Geoff Kelly in the Investigative Post, "that the measures taken by ICE agents to conceal their identities—unmarked vehicles, face masks, no badges or name-tags—indicates their authority is vulnerable to challenges by ordinary citizens."
"'As long as they're still wearing masks, they're still afraid of us,'" Lin said.
"What you do to scare me only excites me," sang Manno Charlemagne. "Masked man, I'm not afraid of you. You're only a person."
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'Sigh of Relief' as Judge Blocks Trump Attack on Protected Status of Haitian Refugees
"For Haitian TPS holders and their families, this decision provides immediate relief from the fear of family separation, job loss, and forced return to life-threatening conditions in Haiti."
Feb 03, 2026
Haitian refugees living in the United States with temporary protected status were given a reprieve Monday night when a federal judge blocked an order by the Trump administration to strip them of their TPS—an effort that many feared would lead to an immediate intensification of efforts to target such communities with the same heavy-handed tactics seen by federal agents in Minnesota, Maine, and elsewhere.
US District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington granted a request to pause the TPS termination for Haitians while a lawsuit challenging the order issued by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem in November proceeds.
The termination of TPS for Haitian nationals was set for Tuesday, but Reyes's 83-page order stated that it "shall be null, void, and of no legal effect."
Rose-Thamar Joseph, the operations director of the Haitian Support Center in Springfield, Ohio—which has a large Haitian community that has been the target of racist and xenophobic attacks from President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and their allies—said the judge's ruling means "we can breathe for a little bit."
The residents of Springfield and surrounding areas have been anxious that their community would be the next target for Trump's aggressive deportation tactics. The legal challenge to the termination of TPS for Haitians alleges that the secretary acted with "animus," as evidenced by repeated public remarks from Noem and other administration officials.
Reyes, in her ruling, determined that the suit stands a good chance of winning on the merits, writing: “The mismatch between what the secretary said in the termination and what the evidence shows confirms that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was not the product of reasoned decision-making, but of a preordained outcome justified by pretextual reasons."
Jerome Bazard, a member of the First Haitian Evangelical Church of Springfield, told NPR that life in Haiti remains too dangerous for many in his community to return.
"They can't go to Haiti because it's not safe," Bazard said. "Without the TPS, they can't work. And if they can't work, they can't eat, they can't pay bills. You're killing the people."
The sense of relief was felt beyond Ohio, as people from Haiti living with TPS status live in communities across the US.
Tessa Petit, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition and a native of Haiti, said the ruling is a welcome development for the approximately 330,000-350,000 people living in the country with TPS, which allows them to work and pay taxes. In her ruling, Reyes noted that Haitians with TPS generate $5.2 billion annually in tax revenue.
"For Haitian TPS holders and their families, this decision provides immediate relief from the fear of family separation, job loss, and forced return to life-threatening conditions in Haiti," said Petit, "where political instability, gang violence, and humanitarian collapse remain acute. No one should be deported into crisis, and today’s ruling affirms that the law cannot be twisted to justify cruelty.”
“Today’s ruling is a victory for the roughly 350,000 Haitian TPS holders whose status was set to expire tomorrow,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass). “By providing a safe haven to those who cannot return home safely, TPS embodies the American promise as a land of freedom and refuge. Haitian TPS holders are deeply rooted in our Massachusetts communities—from Mattapan to Brockton. They are our friends, our family members, our neighbors, our colleagues. I will keep fighting to protect the Haitian community.”
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said that even though Monday's ruling is sure to be appealed by the Trump administration, it arrives as a "huge" win.
With the order, he said, "350,000 people can breathe a sigh of relief and go to work or school tomorrow without suddenly having been rendered 'illegal' and forced to either go back into danger or risk being rounded up by ICE agents on the street."
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