Haiti is not an abstraction. Haiti is a nation whose pain has too often been treated as policy collateral, a people whose labor is welcomed when needed and whose lives are discounted when convenient.
Now, with the Supreme Court allowing the Trump administration to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Syrians, more than 350,000 Haitians who have lived and worked legally in the United States face the possibility of deportation to a country the world knows is in crisis.
Temporary Protected Status is not a gift. It is a recognition of reality. It says that when a country is overwhelmed by violence, disaster, political collapse or humanitarian emergency, deportation is not simply enforcement. It is endangerment. To strip Haitians of this protection now is to pretend that paperwork matters more than human life.
Haiti is facing one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises. Armed groups control much of the country, violence has disrupted ordinary life, hunger is widespread and humanitarian assistance remains far short of the need.
So, what kind of country sends people back into that? What kind of country says to people who have built lives, paid taxes, raised children, staffed hospitals, opened businesses, cared for elders, cleaned rooms, cooked meals, driven trucks and strengthened communities: your labor was welcome, but your life is disposable?
Cruelty is not an accidental byproduct of this policy. Cruelty is the point.
Haitians have long been punished for being Black, free, defiant and inconvenient. The first Black republic in the world was born of revolt against slavery, and the nations that profited from slavery never forgave Haiti for proving that enslaved people could liberate themselves. France extracted a ruinous indemnity. The United States occupied Haiti. International lenders, foreign governments and domestic elites have repeatedly treated Haiti as a problem to manage, not a sovereign nation to respect; a profit center, not a proud country. The present crisis cannot be separated from that long history of extraction, intervention and contempt.
During the 2024 campaign, Springfield, Ohio, became a national symbol of anti-Haitian hysteria after false claims about Haitians eating pets were amplified for political gain. That lie was not just ridiculous; it was dangerous. It turned neighbors into targets.
Springfield tells another story. Haitians came there to work. They filled jobs. They opened businesses. They joined churches. They enrolled children in schools. They helped revive a struggling city. After the court’s ruling, many now face fear and uncertainty. Even Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, reportedly called ending Haitian TPS a mistake, pointing to the conditions in Haiti.
The United States has legal power. That has never been in doubt. The deeper question is whether it has moral sense. Haiti has been punished for its freedom, exploited for its labor, burdened by debt, occupied, stereotyped and scapegoated. Sending Haitians back into danger continues that long, ugly pattern.
But cruelty does not have to have the last word. Congress can act. The administration can halt deportations. Communities can protect their neighbors. Churches, unions, employers, advocates and people of conscience can refuse to let Haitian families disappear quietly into deportation machinery. At minimum, this country should extend TPS, halt deportations to Haiti and create a path to permanence for people who have already built their lives here.
Cruelty may be the point of this policy. Resistance must be the point of our response.
Julianne Malveaux, a former college president, is an economist, author and commentator based in Washington, D.C.