MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – Local leaders are reacting to a Supreme Court ruling stripping temporary legal protections from hundreds of thousands of immigrants.
Doral Vice Mayor Maureen Porras, an immigration attorney, said she worries over the decision’s impact on vetted Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who came to the U.S. with legal status and U.S. sponsors via a Biden-era humanitarian parole program.
“With a stroke of a pen, all of a sudden half a million people will have lost their legal immigration status and their employability,” Porras said. “This is a very devastating decision. And now we’re going to see a lot of businesses whose employees had work permits under this parole program not show up to work tomorrow. It’s really going to have a chilling effect.”
Paul Christian Namphy, political director and lead organizer of the Family Action Network Movement, which provides services primarily to Haitian immigrants, described the ruling as causing “terrible, terrible, terrible uncertainty for our community members, people who came here legally.”
The ruling has sparked bipartisan pushback from several local federal lawmakers, including Republican U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez.
“They are part of our community, they are part of our economy and they need to be treated as such,” he said.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson described the decision as “cruel and inhumane,” saying that deporting them is a “death sentence.”
Fellow Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz added, “They are not criminals or even illegal immigrants. They came here legally.”
Republican U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar said she strongly urges the administration to use its executive authority and grant deferred enforcement departure to prevent the immigrants from being sent back to violence and repression.
“This is a critical moment. Everyone needs to be taking precautions,” Namphy said.
There is also worry that Temporary Protected Status designations for Haitians could be at risk.
Friday’s ruling also revoked TPS for Venezuelans with 2023 designations, impacting more than a quarter of a million people.