Connecticut's Haitian community is grappling with uncertainty after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration can move forward with ending Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Haitians and Syrians, potentially exposing hundreds of thousands of people to deportation.
The 6-3 ruling clears the way for the administration to end legal protections for roughly 350,000 Haitians who have been allowed to live and work in the United States for years. The decision overturned lower court orders that had temporarily blocked the administration's efforts.
For many in Connecticut's Haitian community, the ruling is deeply personal.
"It's heartbreaking," said Ruth Fortune, a Haitian-American attorney, Hartford Board of Education member and Democratic candidate for Congress in Connecticut's 1st District. "My family had TPS for many years. TPS is not perfect, but it allowed us to work lawfully and to give us protection from deportations."
Connecticut is home to more than 20,000 residents of Haitian descent, with sizable communities in Bridgeport, Norwalk, Stratford and Hartford.
Fortune came to the United States from Haiti as a child and said she understands firsthand what the loss of TPS protections could mean.
"There are people on TPS who've had it, who've been here for decades,” she said. “People who've built their lives here, who are raising their families here, who are calling this place home, and who don't have a home to return to in Haiti.”
A community facing uncertainty
Fortune said many TPS holders are now asking basic questions about their futures.
"The people I've spoken with, they're devastated, and they don't know what to do next," she said. "Where do they live when they lose their jobs? How do they afford their expenses? Do we keep sending our children to school once they lose their TPS status? Will they be viciously targeted by ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]?"
The Supreme Court's ruling does not immediately revoke TPS protections. However, it gives the administration authority to move forward with ending the designation, a process immigration advocates say could happen quickly.
“I expect [that] to happen within 30 days,” Fortune said.
Fortune said state and local leaders should begin preparing now.
"An emergency response fund would be a huge help, and connecting our community to really reliable and competent legal experts," she said.
At the same time, she cautioned against giving TPS holders false hope.
"The reality is, once this administration moves to terminate TPS ... that legal protection ceases to exist," Fortune said. "If we try to tell people that they're protected and somehow they can continue to work and continue to do all the things that they're doing, we're doing them a disservice."
Economic impact
Fortune said the loss of TPS protections could have consequences beyond the Haitian community itself.
She pointed to the large number of Haitian immigrants working in healthcare and elder care.
"About one-fifth of the workers who work in the long-term care space, taking care of our elders, are Haitian TPS holders," she said.
"Haitian TPS holders do all types of jobs, in restaurants, schools, bus driving, being paraprofessionals in our schools," she added. "We are very integrated into our community."
Immigration advocates nationwide have warned that ending TPS could create labor shortages in several industries that rely heavily on immigrant workers.
A political and racial flashpoint
Fortune also argued that race has played a role in the administration's immigration policies toward Haitians.
"The president himself has said really awful things about Haitian immigrants" she said, referring to past comments made by President Donald Trump about Haitian migrants and about Haiti itself.
"What we've seen under this Trump regime is simply an approach to immigration to make America less diverse and more white."
The Supreme Court majority rejected arguments that the administration's decision to end Haitian TPS was motivated by racial animus, finding that the administration had offered race-neutral justifications for its actions.
Calls for immigration reform
Fortune said the ruling underscores the need for Congress to act.
"Everyone who cares about immigrants and who cares about the diversity of America should be fighting for comprehensive immigration reform that gives a path to citizenship for people like Haitians on TPS who've worked here and built life here and have contributed greatly to their communities and to the economy of this country."
For now, she said, Connecticut's Haitian community is bracing for what comes next.
"This is a time where our Haitian neighbors will need a lot of support," Fortune said. "How do we support those communities in every way that we can?"
