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The US president Donald Trump is man on a mission. He introduces policies that would forever alter the lives and the futures of individuals both domestically and globally. One such area relates to the issue of right to residence for non-Americans. Following on his campaign promises, he is pursuing the eviction of “undocumented aliens” from the US with military zeal.
At the same time, he is aiming to introduce the right to residence for those non-Americans with deep pockets. Trump has just revealed, that his administration will offer rich immigrants a fast-track route to permanent residency and eventual citizenship provided they buy the so-called “gold cards” which will be offered at $5 million apiece. This initiative, according to Trump, could quickly pay down the national debt. As he has spelt out: his government could sell 10 million visas to help reduce the national deficit.
Offering golden visas to the rich and well-to-do by nations with powerful passports has a long and established history. Several nations in Europe and the Caribbean have practiced it for decades. The Trump administration, therefore, cannot be criticised for planning to introduce this scheme.
What is troubling, however, is the simultaneous eviction of poor, vulnerable and persecuted undocumented immigrants present in the US, and the plan to sell some one-million investors visa to those with deep pockets.
The US has long prided itself as the nation at the forefront of protecting those fleeing violence and war. As part of its humanitarian obligation for decades, it has taken tens of thousands of refugees from across the world whose lives are often blighted by conflict. While it has not abandoned that moral responsibility, under the current administration, the rug is being pulled from under the feet of many refugees who had once sought protection and shelter in the United States.
A case in point is the precarious status of some half-a-million Haitian refugees who have been living in the United States. Since 2010, the successive governments in Washington DC., provided shelter and protection to this segment under what is known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Under the scheme scores of Haitians fleeing their war-torn island who entered the US illegally, qualified for legally protected status. The programme offered them not only the chance to live legally in the country but also provided them opportunities to work legally.
Under President Trump’s immigration reform drive, TPS has come under intense scrutiny. To keep up with Trump’s vision, the US Department of Homeland Security has said it will withdraw the programme in the first week of August. Should it go ahead with its plans, it will spell doom for scores of Haitians currently living in the US. They will be forcefully evacuated and sent to their violent island nation.
Faced with these impending threats many Haitians in the US living under TPS are seeking solace and divine intervention in their churches or at shops that sell spiritual products.
The US Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife, giving people authorization to work in increments of up to 18 months at a time. TPS is available to people whose home country has experienced a natural disaster, armed conflict or other extraordinary event. Haiti has been designated for TPS since 2010. Obama administration first granted TPS status to Haitians in 2010 after a devastating earthquake destroyed much of the island nation. Haiti has been on a downward spiral ever since. Natural disasters, political mismanagement, poverty and armed gang violence, have rendered Haiti a collapsed country in all but name. Its hapless citizens live on the margins of existence.
There are no other people more desperate and more deserving of protection than the Haitians.
The spectacle of anarchy in Haiti is quite simply unimaginable. There is an urgent need for national unity and institutional discipline. Marauding armed gangs put ordinary Haitians through medieval cruelty on a daily basis. It has been witnessing a surge in deadly violence, looting, attacks on government and civilian establishments and other forms of criminal activity led by the dreaded armed gangs for well over two years now.
According to the UN human rights office, OHCHR, at least 5,601 people were killed in gang violence in Haiti in 2024 – a 20% rise from the previous year. In the same period, there were also, cases of 1,500 kidnappings. The country also witnessed nearly 6,000 cases of gender-based violence, especially sexual assault on children by gangs. More than a million Haitians, over half of them children, are displaced within the country due to gang-led violence.
It’s a country that exists in a political impasse imposed upon by the federation militant violent gangs. The country does not have a functioning government. The political stakeholders remain busy accusing each other. This situation, in turn, has been extremely favourable to the federation of armed gangs operating in the country to terrorise the masses with complete impunity.
The gangs not only do not want the people to live under their terror regime but work closely to undermine any attempts at conflict reduction. The Kenyan-led international police force currently deployed in the country has itself lost its personnel to gang violence. In addition, some hundreds of thousands of Haitians have become internally displaced due to gang violence.
Trump has never shied away from expressing his disdain for this migrant community. During his election campaign, President Trump described the Haitians living in the US as subhumans – eating pets including cats and dogs. This was widely condemned by many fellow Americans at the time as bigotry and lie.
In a violent world, the United States stood as a beacon of hope to those fleeing for safety. However, the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants constitutes the core policy undertaken by the current administration. If Trump’s plans to deport the 521,000 Haitians under the TPS status go ahead this segment will be left to the mercies of the country’s armed gangs. Repatriating the half-a-million Haitian immigrants to this hostile and unstable land would be very irresponsible. While the undertaking may help President Trump fulfill his election promise, it would damage the reputation of the US in the long run both at home and abroad.
While the door is slowly swinging shut on the fate of these migrants, it brings into question the obligations of the US towards the persecuted and the vulnerable.
[Image by Pixabay]
Amalendu Misra is a professor of international politics, Lancaster University, United Kingdom, and author of Towards a Philosophy of Narco Violence in Mexico, New York: Palgrave. He’s on X (formerly Twitter) @MisraAmalendu. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
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