SCOTUS ruling escalates attacks on migrants

The reactionary Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) made a majority 6-3 racist, anti-immigrant ruling on June 25 to end the Temporary Protective Status (TPS) program. This program, passed by the House and Senate in 1990, provided temporary political asylum for refugees in the U.S. forced to leave their home countries due mainly to war, natural disasters and government persecution. The asylum seekers were provided certain protections like work permits, drivers’ licenses, housing, etc. 

In a separate but interconnected anti-migrant ruling with the same vote and also on June 25, SCOTUS ruled that migrants from South America are subject to be deported from the U.S. without any due process, and thousands more can be denied entry across the Southern border to the U.S.

The TPS program was expanded in 2010 to address the earthquake catastrophe in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, that killed an estimated 220,000 people and exacerbated the already extreme poverty there. The TPS program was extended to allow refugees from Syria to legally migrate to the U.S. to escape the U.S.-sponsored civil war there that began in 2011. 

The six members of SCOTUS who voted to scrap the TPS program claimed that their decision did not reflect any racial bias and was “race neutral,” but that is a bald-faced lie. Their vote is in keeping with the white supremacist views of the current White House administration, which has especially targeted Haiti in well-documented, vile, derogatory terms that will not be repeated here. Most Haitians in the U.S. are concentrated in South Florida, Boston and Brooklyn, New York. 

There are over a dozen countries, mainly located in the Global South, whose populations will be greatly impacted by this SCOTUS ruling. Five of these countries alone account for roughly 97% of the over one million individuals approved for protections. They are El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Ukraine and Venezuela, according to the Congressional Research Service, a federal data agency.

Haitians in the U.S. denounce racist ruling

In a statement released by a San Francisco Bay Area Haitian American group on the SCOTUS ruling, the Haiti Action Committee remarked: “This cruel and terrible decision means Haitians can be forced to return to Haiti, a nation in crisis under U.S.-led occupation, where the State Department has warned Americans not to travel. In the last year, over 8,000 Haitians have been killed, primarily by death squads, and 1.5 million have had to flee their homes.

“The Supreme Court decision will cause great harm. Families will fear for their future. But the fight is not over. TPS holders deserve protection.”

Haïti Liberté, a Haitian American publication based in Brooklyn, stated on June 27: “We at Haïti Liberté are outraged but not surprised by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in the case of Mullin v. Doe to clear the way for the Trump administration to end the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of some 350,000 Haitian workers currently living in the U.S. (as well as that of some 6,000 Syrians). 

“It is just one more indication of the increasingly racist, lawless and inhuman nature of the U.S. government’s conduct, especially under Trump, who has appointed three of the court’s nine justices.

“The U.S. government has made Haiti a living hell, because the Haitian people have made their anti-imperialist sentiments clear in elections and demonstrations over the past three and a half decades. This has earned the country three coups d’état and three foreign military interventions, all Washington directed. 

“But in the long run, ending TPS may backfire on Washington. TPS — along with Biden’s CHNV [Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela Parole Process] visa ended last year — created a release valve on the revolutionary anger growing in the Haitian masses. With those programs gone, Haitians may be forced to carry out the revolutionary change in Haiti which is so long overdue. Long live the Haitians’ struggle!”

An attempt to maintain a white majority

While SCOTUS reinforces #47’s racist, xenophobic campaign against mainly migrants of color, his administration is blatantly promoting and encouraging thousands of white South African emigres, stating that they are victims of “reverse racism.” It is a pathetic excuse for this white supremacist policy to falsely claim that these Afrikaners are escaping persecution from a Black-majority government that has only been in existence since 1994 compared to over 200 years of U.S.-backed, colonial apartheid suffered by Black South Africans. 

These whites are being offered special perks from #47, including an Android tablet, a U.S. flag and copies of the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence. They will also receive a packet of literature that provides a sanitized, biased view of U.S. and South African history regarding enslavement and so-called civil rights laws that claim discrimination against white people. This is on top of all the other governmental advantages these privileged Afrikaners will receive, such as housing, jobs and healthcare.

It is a well-known fact that while the U.S. is over 57% white, there continues to be a steady population increase of people of color due to migration. What the SCOTUS rulings and the disgusting rolling out the red carpet for Afrikaners shows is that #47 is afraid of this reality. So one not so hidden message behind the “Make America Great Again” slogan is to “keep America as white as possible” by keeping out and deporting Black, Brown and Arab people from the U.S. — through legal means with the courts or through violent means with the Border Patrol, Immigration Custom and Enforcement terrorists and detention centers. 

But these attempts will remain futile as resistance towards any form of repression knows no borders thanks to the growing unity and solidarity in defense of the global working class. Protect and expand permanently TPS!