Impose full travel ban: Don to SC
■ Trump govt ends protected status for Caribbean nation
Washington, Nov. 21: The Trump administration has said it is ending a temporary residency permit programme that has allowed almost 60,000 citizens from Haiti to live and work in the United States since a 2010 powerful earthquake shook the Caribbean nation.
The homeland security department said conditions in Haiti have improved significantly, so the benefit will be extended one last time until July 2019 to give Haitians time to prepare to return home. “Since the 2010 earthquake, the number of displaced people in Haiti has decreased by 97 per cent,” the department said in a press release.
“Haiti is able to safely receive traditional levels of returned citizens.”
Advocates and members of Congress from both parties had asked the Trump administration for an 18- month extension of the programme, known as Temporary Protected Status.
Haitian President Jovenel Moise’s government also requested the extension.
Rony Ponthieux, a 49year- old Haitian nurse with temporary residency who has lived in Miami since 1999, said, “This isn’t over, this is time we get to fight for renewal, not to pack our bags.” She has a daughter and a son born in the United States and another son in PortauPrince.
“We need to push Washington to provide a legal status for us with TPS,” Ponthieux said. “This is anti- immigrant policy.”
Advocates for Haitians quickly criticized the decision, arguing the conditions in the island nation haven’t improved nearly enough for Haitians to be deported.
Florida Rep. Mario DiazBalart, a Republican, expressed “strong opposition” to the measure and urged the administration to reconsider.
“Forcing them to leave the United States would be detrimental,” he said in a press release. Honolulu: The Trump administration has asked the US Supreme Court to allow the latest travel ban to take full effect.
A federal appeals court ruling last week allowed President Donald Trump’s newest version of the ban to partially take effect. That ruling by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the administration to ban people from six mostly Muslim countries unless they have a “bona fide” relationship with someone in the US.
Last month, a federal judge in Hawaii had blocked most of Mr Trump’s third travel ban just before it was due to take effect. A judge in Maryland separately blocked it to a lesser degree, saying Trump could bar people from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen as long as they did not have “bona fide” relationships with people or organisations already in the US.