In the spring of 2017, a high level Trump administration official asked for details on how many Haitians with Temporary Protected Status were on public benefits, how many were convicted of "crimes of any kind," and how many had been in the country unlawfully before being granted TPS.
When told by staffers that this information wasn't relevant to granting TPS and that the existing data "wasn't good," she continued to press ahead. She explained that the Homeland Security Secretary "is going to need this to make a final decision" that spring on whether to extend TPS for Haitians. They were granted the right to stay in the U.S. after a devastating 2010 earthquake.
To critics of that decision, these emails, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, reveal an administration intent on seeking negative information to doom the renewal of TPS for nearly 60,000 Haitians.
"Keep in mind that this is in no way relevant to deciding whether to extend or terminate TPS designation to a country under the statute," said Sejal Zota, legal director of the National Immigration Project, which requested the emails with the NYU Immigrant Rights Clinic. "It really suggests that they were attempting to manufacture a basis to deny TPS. That they went on this fishing expedition to paint all Haitians as criminals and as unauthorized immigrants."
The emails came from Kathy Nuebel Kovarik shortly after she was named Chief of the Office of Policy and Strategy at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. News of their release was first reported by Splinter. Agency spokesman Michael Bars defended Kovarik's questions.
"What these pre-decisional communications demonstrate is a comprehensive, diligent review by agency officials committed to a broader, more holistic understanding of how the complex TPS program operates," he said. "This is what faithful execution of U.S. law looks like, despite frivolous litigation seeking to undermine the integrity of our immigration system."
The National Immigration Project is among groups with New York plaintiffs legally challenging the decision to end TPS for Haitians. A brief extension of TPS for Haitians was granted last spring, but at the end of 2017 were given a final deadline of July 2019 to leave the U.S. or risk deportation. There are estimates that more than 5000 Haitians with TPS are in New York City.
Last month, the National Immigration Project released another batch of communications that showed the Trump Administration ignored parts of an internal report that argued the situation in Haiti had not improved enough since the 2010 earthquake to warrant the end of TPS.
"They were politicizing this process and not doing a good faith review of the conditions," said Zota, suggesting other factors were at play in light of President Trump's comments about Haitians, AIDS and "shithole" countries. "Perhaps, for example, long term hostility toward immigrants of color."