WASHINGTON — GOP Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Sunday urged President Trump to reconsider his decision to yank temporary protective status for thousands of Haitians, who the prez once claimed are “eating the dogs.’’
DeWine — whose state has more than 10,000 Haitians with that status — acknowledged that the US Supreme Court ruling last week allows Trump to legally proceed with removing the protection and paves the way for mass deportations. But he said that doesn’t make it right.
“You cannot fly into Port-au-Prince today,” DeWine told CNN’s “State of the Union,” referring to the crime-riddled island nation’s capital.
“The reason they can’t go in there is because these gang leaders who control a good part of Haiti today, shoot at the planes when they come in.
“It’s a very, very dangerous place,” DeWine said in arguing for giving fleeing Haitians refugee status in the US.
“Just this last week, several more schoolchildren were killed just because gangs were shooting back and forth. Gangs control a significant part of Haiti,” he said.
Temporary protection status, or TPS, allows eligible migrants from countries deemed unsafe to have temporary status in the US and seek work authorization. It has been in effect for Haitians since 2010, when an earthquake rocked the country.
About 350,000 Haitians are living in the US under TPS. Many of those who live in Ohio are in the Springfield area.
Overall, there were more than 1.3 million people from 17 countries who were receiving TPS protection in the US as of March of last year, according to the National Immigration Forum.
Last year, the lower courts blocked the Trump administration’s move to terminate TPS designation for thousands of Haitians and Syrians.
But the Supreme Court concluded last week that the statute behind TPS allows “no judicial review of any determination … with respect to the … termination’ of a TPS designation.”
So the high court rejected plaintiffs’ complaints that former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem failed to follow the proper procedures and that the decision was motivated by racial animus.
Immigrant-rights groups cited Trump’s comments about Haitian migrants “eating the dogs” and describing the Caribbean nation as a “filthy, dirty and disgusting s—hole country” in arguing the race angle.
But Republican-appointed Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the majority opinion, found the comments weren’t “overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications.
DeWine said Sunday, “I accept the Supreme Court’s decision.
“In this country, they’re the final say of what the law is,” the gov said. “I think that it’s important that we separate the legal decision that was made by the Supreme Court with the issue of public policy.
“I would hope the Trump administration would reconsider,” he said. “These are jobs that are being filled by Haitians who are filling jobs that would not be filled any other way.”
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin noted that the administration plans to give Haitians on TPS roughly $2,100 apiece to go back home.
“The whole time these individuals have been here underneath the Temporary Protected Status, they could have applied for a visa. They could have applied for LPR [Lawful Permanent Resident],” Mullin told “State of the Union.”
“These individuals have a couple of choices,” he added. “They can try to apply for a permanent residence here. They can apply for a temporary visa if they choose to, or they can choose to go back. And if they want to go back, we will help them with that.”
When asked about the State Department’s Level 4 travel advisory on Haiti because of violent crime and gang violence there, Mullin downplayed the safety concerns for the migrants.
“Well, that do-not-travel [warning] is not for Haitians,” Mullin said. “There’s advisories to a lot of places that are vacation destinations that we have advisories on because of the real risk to Americans. That doesn’t mean it’s a risk to the individuals that live there.
“That advisory is to American citizens traveling to Haiti, not Haitians going back home.”
