'Anxiety is high': Thousands of Haitians, Syrians in CT worry about Supreme Court's TPS ruling
Over the weekend in New London, staff from the nonprofit Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services faced a room of Haitian migrants pleading for advice on how they might stay in the country once their legal status is revoked.
There wasn't much to tell them, said Maggie Salem Mitchell, IRIS's executive director.
"There's not a lot of good news there," Mitchell Salem said this week. "For most Haitians that are here, there are not viable pathways that they can use that are going to help them remain with status in the U.S."
In a recent ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for President Donald Trump's administration to strip temporary protected status from Haitian and Syrian migrants, exposing hundreds of thousands of people in the country to potential deportation.
Though it's hard to say exactly how many people in Connecticut the ruling affects, Mitchell Salem estimates it's between 4,000 and 5,000. Most of those affected are Haitian, she said, as most Syrians in the state are refugees with a path to citizenship.
"Given other rulings, I expected it, and I was deeply disappointed regardless," Mitchell Salem said of the court's decision. "The human impact of this ruling is hard for most people to comprehend."
Jean Amos Lys, a Haitian-born pastor and marriage counselor who lives in Manchester, said he has numerous friends and family members touched by the ruling.
"Anxiety is high. People are unsure what to do," Lys said. "There are people who've been here 30 years while on TPS. They have kids here, they built a life here, they built a home, they built a business. It's not fair for them to tell them to go back."
Temporary protected status was created in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife. It allows people already in the country to stay with work permits in increments of up to 18 months but does not provide a path to citizenship.
After President Joe Biden expanded the designation, the second Trump administration rolled it back, ending TPS for about 1 million people from 13 countries, including about 650,000 from Venezuela and 50,000 from Honduras. These rollbacks have faced legal challenges, and lower courts have sometimes sided with plaintiffs, but the Supreme Court has consistently sided with the administration.
Last week, in a 6-3 opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court found that the law doesn’t allow courts to question the process that immigration authorities use to revoke the protections, while brushing aside arguments that Trump’s derogatory comments about Haitians showed the decision was unlawfully tinged by prejudice.
Justice Elena Kagan forcefully disagreed, calling Trump’s comments “repellent and racially inflected." Her dissent noted that Trump said Haitians in the U.S. "probably have AIDS" and amplified false rumors during the 2024 campaign that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were abducting and eating dogs and cats.
Federal authorities deny that prejudice played a role in their attempt to end temporary protected status for these groups, arguing TPS was supposed to be temporary but has instead lasted over a decade in some cases.
James Percival, DHS general counsel, applauded the court's ruling, saying the program had become “de facto amnesty" and calling it "a win for the rule of law and common sense." In a Fox News interview last week, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called it “a victory 10 years in the making,” saying it allows Haitian migrants to “finally” be removed.
In Connecticut, which is home to approximately 24,000 Haitian people and 2,800 Syrian people, the ruling was largely met with anger and frustration from advocates and liberal lawmakers.
In a statement, HUSKY 4 Immigrants coalition director Kati Villeda said Syrian and Haitian Connecticut residents stand "at risk of losing everything."
"The Court has made clear that the federal government's cruelty toward immigrant communities has no legal limit," Villeda said. "Connecticut is home to Haitian and Syrian families who have lived, worked, and built lives here for over a decade. They are our neighbors, coworkers, friends, and community members."
Top Democratic elected officials also lamented the Supreme Court decision. U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1st, said in a statement the Trump administration is seeking "to rip apart Connecticut families," while U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro. D-3rd, called the decision "unacceptable."
"(Migrants) have fled disaster and extreme violence to find refuge in the United States," DeLauro said in a statement. "Now, because of this failure of judgment, they risk being thrown back into chaos that could have fatal consequences."
In addition to moral arguments, some opponents of ending TPS for large numbers of people have made an economic case, noting many Haitian migrants work in the personal care sector, which is already facing significant staffing shortages. TPS holders contribute about $29 billion a year to the U.S. economy and pay nearly $8 billion in taxes, according to one estimate from the advocacy organization FWD.us.
Lys, the Haitian-born pastor, said forcing Haitians to leave the country will be bad not only for them but for the country as a whole.
"People might think this is a good thing, but they've got family members in nursing homes, family members who get emergency services at the hospital," he said. "Their life is going to be impacted also."