The Trump Administration has begun searching for information on the criminal histories of Haitian immigrants, while it has to decide on the fate of Haitian immigrants affected by the expiration of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

Investigations into the criminal histories of Haitian immigrants were conducted, according to internal e-mails from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) obtained by the AP news agency. They show that the policy chief of the Agency also wanted to know how many of the 50,000 Haitians enrolled in the protected temporary status program were taking advantage of the benefits and were not eligible to receive them.

However, e-mails do not clearly show whether the criminal histories of Haitians will be used to determine whether they can stay in the United States or not.

But e-mails suggest that John Kelly, the Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), who has to make the decision, is looking at other criteria.

For his part David Lapan, Department spokesman indicated Tuesday that criminal history and other information requested by policy chief Kathy Nuebel Kovarik won’t be used to make a final decision about Temporary Protected Status. Lapan said the questions were asked so that Kelly could have a fuller understanding of who is in the program.

But this explanation does not seem to reflect the apparent importance given to these issues by Kovarik or the USCIS strategy, in repeated e-mails to his staff "I do want to alert you [...] the secretary is going to be sending a request to us to be more responsive," wrote Kovarik on 27 April. Addressing the Agency's inability to collect the information requested on wrongdoing, she stated "I know some of it is not captured, but we’ll have to figure out a way to squeeze more data out of our systems."

The request for criminal data for an entire ethnic community is unorthodox. Federal law doesn’t specify it should be a consideration for Temporary Protected Status, and the government has never said it would use a community’s behavior in deciding if a country’s citizens should be allowed to stay within the framework of this program. The introduction of new criteria is likely to cause dismay among law-abiding Haitians who may feel penalized for the reprehensible acts of others.

But the request fits in with President Donald Trump’s tough-on-immigration focus.

See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20859-haiti-flash-tps-2-senators-and-8-members-of-congress-write-to-john-kelly.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20853-haiti-diaspora-tps-position-of-president-jovenel-moise.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20832-haiti-flash-black-caucus-supports-tps-extension.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20853-haiti-diaspora-tps-position-of-president-jovenel-moise.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20820-haiti-flash-tps-pressures-multiply-on-government-trump.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20779-haiti-flash-tps-16-us-senators-defend-haitians-in-the-usa.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20727-haiti-flash-us-immigration-service-recommends-the-end-of-tps.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20679-haiti-flash-nearly-60-000-haitians-fear-that-trump-will-not-renew-the-tps.html

SL/ HaitiLibre