By NAN Staff Writer
News Americas, WASHINGTON, D.C., Thurs. May 18, 2017: Haitians For Trump, a group that choose to throw their support behind Donald Trump for President of the United States, is now taking to Twitter to push the administration to extend Temporary Protected Status for Haitians in the U.S.
The group has been tweeting Trump along with Vice President Mike Pence, Kelly Ann Conway and the White House, urging the extension as the May 23rd deadline approaches. They have also retweeted several messages from Madgie Nichols, an adviser to the group and the National Diversity Coalition For Trump as well as President and Founder of Soleilmicro Corporation and posted alot of photos from a recent Florida rally in favor of TPS.
Among the messages Nichols has been sending to Trump via Ttwitter includes: “#Haiti decision due May 23 will not only be a critical test for TPS program but also a telling statement about your promise @realDonaldTrump” and “Haiti suffering post earthquake isnt #fakenews it’s fact check by me. Haitians cannot be deported. U HAVE TO SAY SOMETHING @realDonaldTrump.”
The fate of some 60,000 Haitians is in limbo, much like the DREAMERS under the Obama Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, unless the Trump administration extends TPS by May 23rd ahead of the July 22, 2017 extension.
The TPS for Haitian immigrants was originally granted after the devastating earthquake in the Caribbean nation in 2010. Then Homeland Security Secretary under the Obama administration, Janet Napolitano, granted an initial 18 month immigration relief to Haitian nationals who were in the United States as of January 12, 2010.
The program provided temporary refuge for Haitian nationals who were in the United States and whose personal safety would have been endangered by returning to Haiti. The program allowed for qualified immigrants who applied using Form I-821, Application for Temporary Protected Status, and Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization; paid the necessary fees and completed a back ground security screening, to obtain a one-year Employment Authorization Document (EAD) that allowed them to work and also travel out of the country.
Since 2010, the program has been extended continually, allowing for those TPS Haiti beneficiaries who re-register during a 60-day period to receive a new EAD for one year. This July 22, 2017, the EAD and temporary legal status will run out again.
Haitians for Trump is among many clinging to what Trump told them during his campaign last September as he courted Haitian immigrant voters at the Little Haiti Cultural Center in Miami.
“I really want to be your greatest champion,” he said then. “I will be your champion, whether you vote for me or not.”
Former Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, who supported Trump over Hillary Clinton is among those clinging to those words.
“Donald Trump came to Little Haiti, and he said that he would be the best president for Haitians,” said Lamothe of the Dr. Louis G. Lamothe Foundation to aid rural Haiti, recently. “Haitians take him at his word.”
But so far neither Trump, his Secretary of Homeland Security, John Kelly, or the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, (USCIS), have made any disclosure on what will happen with this program; which some ultra-conservative supporters, including the Judicial Watch, have called “temporary amnesty for illegal aliens.” And with time slipping away and Trump embattled in one major political battle after another of his own making, it is unclear whether he will deliver on his months old campaign promise to a group that is hardly his base.
