On Friday, August 2, 2019, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced the end of the "Haitian Family Reunification Parole Program" launched in 2016, under the Obama administration, which allowed thousands of Haitians who had already obtained an immigrant visa based on family reunification, to wait in the United States with their family for their green card to be available.

With the end of this program, future Haitians concerned will no longer be allowed to wait in the United States for their "family" green card to be available.

The USCIS has stated that this decision is in line with the 2017 Decree 13767 on improvements to border security and immigration enforcement. Ken Cuccinelli, Acting Director of USCIS said, "Family reunification must be used on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit. USCIS is committed to exercising this limited power in a manner that preserves the integrity of our immigration system and does not encourage foreigners to enter the United States illegally."

"Many of these individuals are eligible to apply to adjust status to lawful permanent resident (LPR) and have already done so, in which case this termination will not affect those individuals with LPR status," said Ana Santiago, USCIS spokeswoman adding that as of June 21, 2019, 8,302 Haitians had received documents under this program.

This unexpected decision by the Trump administration caught many defenders off guard. For Marleine Bastien, head of the Family Action Network, said, "I don’t think now is the time for the Trump administration to be rolling back protections for Haitian families, especially when Haiti is facing probably one of its worst political crises in history," recalling that Trump had promised to be a champion of Haitians during his presidential campaign "This is how he’s showing his support ?"

For Immigration Advocate Tom Jawetz, Vice President for Immigration Policy at the Center for American Progress in Washington, "Ending the program is anti-American"

SL / HaitiLibre