Washington, June 28 (IANS) US President Donald Trump’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians has exposed divisions within the Republican Party, with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin defending the move while Ohio Governor Mike DeWine calling it “a mistake.”
Appearing on separate Sunday television interviews, Mullin said TPS was always intended to be temporary and urged beneficiaries to seek another legal immigration status or voluntarily return to their home countries.
“Temporary Protected Status was never intended to be permanent,” Mullin said on CNN’s State of the Union. “These individuals have a couple of choices. They can try to apply for permanent residence here. They can apply for a temporary visa if they choose to, or they can choose to go back. And if they want to go back, we will help them with that.”
He said the administration would provide returning migrants with transport and financial assistance.
“We will actually give you a plane ticket, plus roughly $2,100 to help you re-establish when you get there,” Mullin said.
The interview followed a Supreme Court ruling allowing the Trump administration to terminate TPS protections for more than 350,000 immigrants from Haiti and Syria while legal challenges continue.
Asked whether Haiti was safe enough for deportations, Mullin said the administration considered several factors before making such decisions.
“There isn’t a more generous country in the world than the United States, but we don’t want people to take advantage of it,” he said.
Pressed on State Department travel advisories and deteriorating conditions in Haiti, Mullin argued that warnings issued to Americans did not necessarily reflect conditions for Haitians returning home.
He added that the administration expected “pretty full flights going back to Haiti” and said rebuilding countries such as Haiti and Syria required their own citizens to return.
“If we really want those countries to succeed, then they need the best of the best to be back in their country living there,” he said. “And we’re going to assist them in that.”
Minutes later on the same programme, DeWine publicly disagreed with the administration’s policy, citing both security concerns and labour shortages.
“I think it’s a mistake for a number of reasons,” the Ohio governor said. “It is clearly not safe. Anybody who has followed Haiti over a long, extended period of time knows that it’s worse than it has, frankly, ever been.”
DeWine also argued that deporting Haitians would hurt the US economy.
“It is not in the United States’ interests, certainly not in Ohio’s interest, to have people who are working every single day, who are supporting a family, who are buying houses, fixing up old houses, starting businesses, and then put deep roots in this country and really are contributing and yank them out,” he said.
He said Haitian immigrants play important roles in manufacturing, food production and healthcare. Many also work in nursing homes, caring for elderly Americans. He urged the administration to reconsider the policy, saying it was not in the country’s long-term interest.
TPS is a humanitarian programme created by the US Congress in 1990. It allows nationals of designated countries affected by armed conflict, natural disasters or other extraordinary conditions to live and work legally in the United States for limited periods. The designation must be reviewed periodically by the Department of Homeland Security.
Haiti has remained under TPS for years because of political instability, gang violence, and repeated natural disasters, while Syria has retained the designation since the outbreak of its civil war. The Trump administration argues that the programme was never intended to become a pathway to permanent residence and says temporary protections should not become permanent immigration status.
–IANS
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