“…Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

—
The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus, November 2, 1883

Arguably, no other country on Earth fits Emma Lazarus’s profile, emblazoned on America’s Statue of Liberty towering over New York’s harbour, more than impoverished Haiti — the “tired… poor … the wretched refuse” of the Caribbean shore.

If Lady Liberty, as the monument is dubbed, still welcomes the “homeless and tempest-tossed”, surely Haiti must qualify.

Fleeing their homeland in rickety sail bloats, not sure where they will land, Haiti’s huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, represent the shame of the Western Hemisphere.

It is in that context that Jamaican American Congresswoman Yvette D Clarke, along with the Haiti Caucus in the US House of Representatives, joined with the largest and fastest-growing health-care union in the US, the United Healthcare Workers East, to urge the Donald Trump-led Administration to reinstate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians.

With Haiti continuing to grapple with “a series of crises in recent years, including natural disasters, gang violence and political upheaval creating a horrific humanitarian, political, and economic crisis”, the union said the decision to remove TPS could become a death sentence for more than 500,000 Haitian nationals living in the United States.

Many who have been enjoying TPS have raised families, started businesses, and contributed to their communities “are now at risk of deportation, for nothing more than being Haitian”.

“The decision of the Trump Administration to end the extension of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians is unconscionable,” the United Healthcare Workers East was quoted by the Caribbean Media Corporation as saying. It added that reinstating TPS “is the morally just thing to do and in the best interests of all countries”.

As a region, the Caribbean Community nations that can do so must continue to accommodate Haitian refugees by opening their arms to them, as some have been doing, notably The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The United Healthcare Workers East provides a testimonial on behalf of the Haitians about their exemplary behaviour in the US.

“As a union of caregivers, many thousands of whom belong to the Haitian Diaspora, we also recognise how critical Haitian immigrants are to our nation’s health-care system, which is already facing dire workforce shortages.

“Haitians play a vital role in providing care in nursing homes, home care, hospitals, clinics, and other health-care settings, and eliminating TPS will negatively impact patient care,” it said.

It is not that America has run out of capacity to accommodate immigrants. Just this week President Trump said he wants to introduce a “gold card”, akin to a green card, but that would grant foreigners with the means legal permanent residency and a path to citizenship for US$5 million — definitely not for the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free”.

How much the times have changed since Ms Lazarus wrote her poem, The New Colossus, 142 years ago. It would seem that Lady Liberty’s lamp no longer burns for those, like the Haitians, who desperately need its welcoming light.