Cassandra Charles, a local civil rights attorney and Haitian American, was happy to hear the U.S. Supreme Court announce that it will hear oral arguments on the Trump administration’s effort to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Syrians. 

“It signals the fact that the Supreme Court understands how important this issue is, that they’re willing to hear both sides arguing,” said Charles, who also serves as the director of advocacy for the African Immigrant Collective, a local nonprofit serving immigrant groups from the African diaspora.

Haitians were first granted protected status in 2010 after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the country causing widespread devastation. The earthquake killed or injured hundreds of thousands and left over a million people homeless in the Maryland-sized country.

For the past decade and a half, TPS has allowed for Haitians in the U.S. to build families and communities, an opportunity many other immigrant groups did not have.

The court’s decision will have major implications for the Haitian communities in Atlanta’s metro area, which now comprises the fifth-largest Haitian population in the country. Ending TPS could mean losing work authorization, and put many of the metro’s 15,000 Haitian-born residents at risk for detention and deportation. Nationwide, more than 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians could be affected.

“There are mixed [immigration] status families amongst the TPS holders,” Charles noted. “[If TPS is terminated], they’re going to have to make the hard decision [between] ‘Do I go back home, or do I stay undocumented and live in the shadows?’”

Ruth Prophete has called Atlanta home since the early 2000s and has seen the Haitian community grow significantly through her involvement with the Georgia Haitian-American Chamber of Commerce.

Born and raised in New York to parents from Saint-Louis-du-Nord, a commune on Haiti’s northern coast, she said the TPS ruling will impact Haitians in the U.S. regardless of immigration status.

“While you’re here [on TPS], while your paperwork is being processed, you’re able to work and contribute,” she said.

Prophete was also pleased by the Supreme Court’s announcement March 16 that it will hear oral arguments in the case.

“The fact that the judges are open to hearing the case is promising,” she said. “All we can do is hope and pray that the resolution is favorable.”

According to Charles, the court’s decision is significant because of its recent willingness to grant emergency relief decisions in favor of the Trump administration on hot-button immigration issues. These rulings are issued on the court’s “shadow docket” without oral arguments nor a written opinion from the justices explaining their decision.

“The [shadow docket] way, we don’t really know what the decision was based on,” Charles said. 

The Trump administration has filed 74 shadow docket motions — 41 times in his first term and 33 so far in his second. In comparison, the Bush and Obama administrations filed eight shadow docket motions in almost two decades, while the Biden administration filed 19 in four years.

A recent analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School described the court’s record of siding with the Trump administration 80% of the time in his second term as an “abuse of the shadow docket.” 

Recent shadow docket rulings have granted the federal government permission to deport people to countries they aren’t from and authorized immigration officers to investigate people based on appearance or use of accented English.

“That the Supreme Court is willing to hear arguments on this case is very important because when a decision is issued, [we] will understand the reasoning behind it,” Charles noted.

Returning to Haiti is simply not the best option for many immigrants, according to Prophete, who said many stateside Haitians left because of lack of opportunities at home and still financially support relatives living in the country.

“The reality is the government is still shaky,” she said. “If you recall a couple of years ago, sadly, the president was assassinated.”

While Prophete acknowledged much of the violence and instability is concentrated in and around Port-au-Prince, the capital city is home to approximately one-third of the country’s population.

“There are folks here who left on the backs of others,” she said. “Speaking not only on behalf of Haitians but across the immigrant community, most people are literally just coming to make a life for themselves.”

Read More:

Madeline Thigpen is Capital B Atlanta's criminal justice reporter.