SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
racial justice
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.
Keep ReadingShow Less
The VA is Ripping Away Abortion Care for Veterans... Again
This isn’t just a rollback. It’s a deliberate erasure of rights that we fought for in the wake of deeply personal and collective loss.
Jan 25, 2026
In 2022, my wife and I lost our first child. We named them June. They were deeply wanted and fiercely loved. In one fateful appointment, our entire worlds changed. We learned that June had a severe fetal bladder abnormality and was unable to produce amniotic fluid. Without it, their lungs would never develop. They would not survive.
We made the impossible decision to end the pregnancy—an act of compassion, love, and medical necessity.
At the time, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) had a total ban on abortion care and counseling.
No exceptions for rape. No exceptions for incest. Not even to save a veteran’s life.
Veterans and our families deserve futures built on compassion, justice, and love—not fear.
After our loss, the only way I felt I could keep breathing was to turn that grief into meaning. I shared our story with lawmakers to help reverse this dangerous policy so that veterans and their families could turn to the VA—no matter the circumstance or where they lived. That fall, the VA finally took steps to reverse the ban, signaling a long-overdue shift toward care, autonomy, and dignity.
But that progress was short-lived.
The VA just finalized a new abortion ban policy that, once again, excludes exceptions for rape or incest and offers only vague assurances that it will intervene if our lives are at risk. They initially implemented this enormous change in secret without telling veterans or their families.
In effect, it returns the VA to what was once the most extreme abortion ban in the country—an outright prohibition on care and counseling that applies to every VA facility nationwide, regardless of state law.
This isn’t just a rollback. It’s a deliberate erasure of rights that we fought for in the wake of deeply personal and collective loss.
And it is not happening in isolation. The same administration driving this ban is also working diligently to eliminate gender-affirming care, defund programs for minority and underrepresented veterans, and strip inclusive language and data collection from federal policy. The message is unmistakable: Some veterans count. Others don’t.
Veterans are not a monolith. We are a diverse community—LGBTQIA+, people of color, disabled, parents, caregivers, survivors, and yes, women too. Our community exists at every intersection of identity and experience, and our families serve alongside us. Our care cannot be conditional. Our humanity is not negotiable.
Policy is never just about one issue. It is intersectional—because our lives are intersectional.
Reproductive care cannot be separated from gender-affirming care, from disability access and mental health, from racial justice, or maternal health. Our needs don’t exist in silos, and neither do we. When one right is taken away, the loss reverberates across all the others.
I’ve seen what’s possible when we refuse to stay silent—how lived experience can reshape policy and expand care that has never existed before. And I know exactly what is at stake when care is denied. Pregnancy can change on a dime.
June’s life, though brief, transformed mine. Through their memory, I found purpose. I found a voice. And in their honor, I will continue working to ensure that no veteran or family ever has to face what we faced alone.
We should be building systems rooted in care, equity, and truth. We should be honoring the fullness of who veterans are, how we serve, and how we build our families. Instead, our fundamental rights are being stripped away—one policy memo at a time—and once again, we are being asked to fight for the right to make personal decisions about our health, our futures, and our families.
I will not allow June’s legacy to become another casualty of politics. Their life will be a call to care.
This moment demands more than endurance. It demands action.
The policies we pass—within the VA and beyond—shape the futures of veterans and the people who love us. Had my wife not been able to access critical care in her time of need—had we not been given the chance to make the most compassionate choice amid impossible circumstances—we might never have known the joy of raising our child today, a joy born from grief and shaped by love.
Veterans and our families deserve futures built on compassion, justice, and love—not fear.
Because in the end, we are all only human.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Our Voices and Our Votes Matter
On this National Voter Registration Month, let’s honor the generations who fought, marched, and even died for the right to vote by doing our part.
Sep 28, 2025
In 2002, the National Association of Secretaries of State designated every September National Voter Registration Month. This is more than a month on the calendar; it’s a call to action to remind us of one of the most powerful truths in a democracy: Change doesn’t happen unless we show up.
It’s a reminder that our voices matter, our votes matter, and that the freedoms we often take for granted can only be protected if we exercise them at the ballot box.
In recent years, one freedom has been under relentless attack: reproductive freedom. Across the country, state legislatures have rolled back rights that generations before us fought to secure. People are being forced to travel hundreds of miles for medical care, to carry pregnancies against their will, and to endure unnecessary suffering because of political decisions made by elected officials. These policies don’t reflect the will of the majority. Poll after poll shows that most Americans believe in protecting abortion access and reproductive healthcare. But here’s the catch: Beliefs don’t change laws. Votes do.
That’s why National Voter Registration Month matters so deeply. It’s about more than filling out a form. It’s about building power to defend all of our freedoms: reproductive rights, voting rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, climate justice, disability rights, racial equity, and economic fairness. Every freedom we value is on the line, and the ballot box is where we fight for them.
Young people, your future is being decided whether you participate or not. Claim your power.
This message is especially urgent for young people. Generation Z and Millennials already make up the largest voting bloc in the country. Young voters have the numbers to decide elections and to set the course for the future. Yet too often, young voices are missing at the polls because they aren’t registered and don’t realize how simple the process can be.
Here’s the good news: In many states, high school students as young as 16 or 17 can preregister to vote. That means when they turn 18, they’re automatically added to the rolls and ready to participate in their first election. By the time they reach voting age, they’re not scrambling to meet deadlines; they’re already prepared to cast their first ballot and shape their future.
If you’re a young person reading this, or if you know one, don’t wait until the night before a big election to figure out the process. Go online today, check your state’s rules, and register, or preregister now. Encourage your classmates to do the same. Host a registration drive at your school. Post on social media. Because here’s the truth: Decisions about your future are being made right now by people in power. If you’re not registered, you don’t get a say.
National Voter Registration Month is also a reminder to all of us, no matter our age, that democracy is not a spectator sport. Registration deadlines vary by state, and millions of people lose their chance to vote every cycle simply because they missed a deadline or their information wasn’t updated after moving. Taking five minutes to check your registration could be the most important action you take this year.
The stakes have never been higher. The Supreme Court has already overturned Roe v. Wade, stripping away a nearly 50-year precedent. State legislatures are racing to see how far they can go in restricting abortion access. Some are even targeting birth control and IVF. None of this happened by accident. It happened because elections have consequences.
But there’s another side to that story: Protecting and expanding freedoms also comes down to elections. In states where voters showed up to pass ballot measures protecting abortion access, reproductive freedom is still secure. In districts where young people voted in record numbers, leaders committed to justice and equity were elected. The message is clear: When we vote, we win.
So, on this National Voter Registration Month, let’s honor the generations who fought, marched, and even died for the right to vote by doing our part. Let’s commit to registering ourselves, helping our neighbors get registered, and making sure every eligible high school student knows they can take action now.
Our freedoms are not guaranteed. They are defended or lost at the ballot box. If you care about reproductive freedom, if you care about climate justice, if you care about racial equality, LGBTQIA+ rights, or economic security, then voting is not optional; it is essential.
Young people, your future is being decided whether you participate or not. Claim your power. Register. Preregister. Show up. And know this: your voice, your vote, your freedom, our collective future, depends on it.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular