Trump's opposition of Temporary Protected Status worries local Haitians
MIAMI GARDENS - Former President Donald Trump is continuing his tough stance on immigration, now saying he will end Temporary Protected Status and will remove all Haitians in the United States under that order. That move could affect half a million people.
A Miami Gardens family said if this happens it would tear them apart.
Rony Ponthieux has been in the United States for 25 years. He's a nurse who owns a home and has two American-born kids. It's those kids, especially his daughter, who are now worried the most.
"In short, it worries me," Christina Ponthieux said. "The worries that I have are my parents won't be able to support me the same way that they did before. Just having them there. You know, they're all that I know."
Trump said in a recent interview with NewsNation that he'd make sure Haitians were sent back if he became president again, saying. "I'd revoke it and I'd bring them back to their country."
When asked if Haiti wouldn't want them, what would he do. Trump said, "Well, they're going to receive them, they'll receive them. If I bring them back, they're going to receive them."
For Christina Ponthieux, it means she would be separated from her parents, whom she's never been apart. "No one wants to be separated from their parents, especially being born in a country where this is all you know, and sometimes their parents' country is a country that's foreign to them," she said.
Her dad is working on becoming a citizen. Still here on TPS, he said he's believes Trump.
"He will do it," Rony Ponthieux said. "I cannot take it lightly. He will have the power to do it if he gets elected."
Vanessa Joseph, an immigration attorney, said removing half a million people won't be easy.
"You already have backlogs in several areas within the immigration system, not only in terms of the agencies where people are filing affirmative applications, but especially in the courts right where people are defending their removal," Joseph said.
Now you have a situation where you wanna now add 500,000 people almost to that list."
Haitian activist Marliene Bastien, who runs the Family Action Network Movement, she she and her organization have taken on Trump before and won. She said she's ready to do it again.
"We will continue to fight back. We will fight back through our votes, but we will also fight back through the legal system which we used before to stop him," Bastien said. "We sued him and we won. We will sue him again. We hope that we will not have the, we will not need to, to do it. But if it comes to that, we will sue him again."
Bastien went on to say: "Haitians continue to make an impact in all aspects of our lives of American today. So we will fight back to protect the rights of, of the temporary protected status."
Rony Ponthieux said although he still can't vote, he knows someone who can.
"My son is a U.S. citizen," he said. "I will make sure that he vote to make a difference. This is the only way we can prevent that mass deportation because he will do it."
He encourages others to do the same.
"We are, we have millions of Haitians that are U.S. citizens and I asked them today and I urged them in November 5th, which is 32 days from, now to get out and vote."
Christina Ponthieux is about to graduate from high school and go to college. She hopes to have her family by her side as she embarks on these milestones.