Congressman Maxwell Frost blasted the Trump administration for seeking to end temporary protected status for Haitians and Syrians in the United States, one day after the U.S. Supreme Court gave Trump the green light to do so.
In a victory for Trump’s anti-immigration hawks, the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling Thursday cleared the way for Trump’s Department of Homeland Security to end legal protections for immigrants from Syria and Haiti in the U.S. who have fled political violence and natural disaster in their home countries.
This court ruling leaves an estimated 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians in the U.S. at risk for deportation. Nearly half of Haitian TPS holders in the U.S. live in Florida.
“This will not just shake individuals, it will shake families, communities, and our nation,” Frost said at a press conference outside the Kingdom Church’s Haitian-Creole campus in Orlando’s Pine Hills neighborhood Friday. “The Trump administration is knowingly sending people back to places where they face violence, instability and displacement. For many, this is quite literally a matter of life or death.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority — including all the Supreme Court picks who got their jobs under the first Trump administration — didn’t rule that TPS should be canceled. Instead, the Supreme Court determined that courts don’t have the authority to question DHS’s decision to end TPS, including whether DHS did so through appropriate procedures.
The ruling — accompanied by a separate ruling Thursday to deny asylum to those seeking to cross the U.S.–Mexico border — has implications not just for Haitians and Syrians who are here legally in the country with TPS, but also the survival of the federal program itself, should DHS seek to terminate it.
The TPS program, in total, protects 1.3 million people in the U.S. from 17 different countries.
“The administration has chosen to rip away legal protections from people who follow the rules so they can fuel a sinister mass deportation agenda,” Frost argued Friday. “And Trump’s packed Supreme Court has paved the way for him to do so.”
Frost was joined Friday — in solidarity with the local Haitian community — by Democratic State Rep. Bruce Antone, State Sen. LaVon Bracy-Davis, Orlando city commissioner Shan Rose, former Orlando commissioner Regina Hill, Orange County commissioner Mike Scott, Eatonville city council member LaDwyana Ware-Jordan, Ocoee city commissioner George Oliver and Florida House candidate and immigration advocate Felipe Sousa Lazaballet.
Frost and other advocates urged the Senate to swiftly pass a resolution already passed by the U.S. House with bipartisan support that would extend the TPS designation for Haiti until Jan. 20, 2029.
Advocates urged Floridians to call their U.S. senators and demand they take up a vote.
“We know the Haitian community cannot safely return to Haiti, and we will not ask them to return to Haiti during this time. So, we are asking Congress to act and to pass a bill to protect the Haitian community,” said Anne Piervil, director of the Haitian Lawyers Association. “There is still a path for us,” she said.
Frost, similarly, urged the U.S. Senate to “do your damn job” and pass the legislation.
“They could take it up tomorrow if they wanted to,” Frost confirmed, when questioned by Orlando Weekly. “But the Senate just yesterday decided to go on vacation until July 5.”
“They love to not work over there,” he added dryly. “So what we’re telling them is, in this moment, get back to work.”
Many of the Haitian TPS holders in Central Florida work in the healthcare sector as caregivers for seniors, and in the region’s lucrative tourism and hospitality industries. Members of the Service Employees International Union and Unite Here Local 737, a labor union that represents hospitality workers — including many immigrants — at Disney World and local hotels, were present at the press conference Friday.
“We know they are our teachers, our social workers, our nurses — they are the heart of hospitality and tourism in Central Florida, and they are in our nursing homes and our hospitals,” said Piervil. “What has happened here is something that we know is not right, but we will continue to fight.”
Her organization provides Know Your Rights information to immigrants. But they also have criminal defense attorneys, family attorneys and real estate attorneys involved to help TPS holders who are facing daunting realities for what’s next.
“You can protect your assets, your wealth, your children, your homes, your cars and your mortgages,” she affirmed. “We have created a free legal hotline where you can call and get legal consultations from Haitian attorneys to speak Haitian Kréyol,” Piervil said.
“This is not the outcome that we thought we would be here for today,” she admitted, adding that to say they are saddened would be an understatement. “However, we have fought this fight before, and we will continue to fight.”
Plaintiffs in the legal case that reached the Supreme Court on this issue had argued that the Trump administration’s efforts to end TPS for Haitians were based on “racial animus,” or prejudice, due to ludicrously false claims made by Trump on the campaign trail that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio were eating the cats and dogs of their neighbors (as well as calling Haiti a “shithole country” and saying most Haitians trying to enter the United States “probably have AIDS“).
The opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, issued Thursday, however, dismissed this argument. Frost, a vocal critic of Trump, wasn’t convinced.
“Donald Trump is a racist.”
U.S. Congressman Maxwell Frost (D-FL)
“Donald Trump is a racist,” Frost stated Friday, plain and simple. “He ran on saying we want less undocumented people in this nation, but what people have to understand is, Donald Trump is ripping away legal status from people who did the thing we told them to do,” he argued.
“He is making more people undocumented, and we have to call out the fact that the people he’s making undocumented are damn near exclusively Black and brown people.”
Frost pointed out several organizations that offer resources for immigrants and their families that were present at the press conference, including the Haitian Lawyers Association, Florida Legal Services, the Hispanic Federation, Hope CommUnity Center and other mutual aid groups.
“We’re with you, and we love you,” Frost said, in a message directed to his Haitian constituents. “And at a moment that it seems like your government doesn’t care about you, I want you to know I’m proud to not stand in front of you, not stand behind you, but stand alongside you, as we fight for your dignity and for your family.”
President Trump made perfectly clear, ahead of his inauguration in January 2025, his intent to conduct the “largest deportation operation in American history.” Florida’s state leadership has been more than happy to assist.
The Sunshine State has more 287(g) agreements with the federal government than any other state. These agreements allow local law enforcement agencies in Florida to deputize officers to serve as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. What this means in practice is that ICE is able to infiltrate communities in Florida where law enforcement is already embedded.
The Supreme Court ruling Thursday also came the same day that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis formally confirmed the closure of “Alligator Alcatraz,” a state-run detention facility in the Florida Everglades that has faced numerous accusations of human rights violations since it opened last summer.
Detention operations at the Everglades detention center led to nearly 30,000 additional deportations, according to Gov. DeSantis. Florida accounts for more than 40 percent of all state and local immigration arrests nationwide, according to his office.
“That [decision] was a no-brainer in terms of immigration policy and immigration enforcement,” DeSantis said of the Supreme Court ruling affecting TPS Thursday. “I think the 6-3 decision today was correct as a matter of law. I think it’s the right policy as well.”
Florida’s Democratic leadership, however — who hold a minority status in the state Legislature — criticized the decision.
“These are our neighbors, co-workers and community members. They work legally, pay taxes, raise families and contribute to our country every day,” said Florida House Democratic leader Fentrice Driskell of Tampa in a statement.
“This decision is part of a broader effort by President Trump to restrict legal immigration pathways and make life more difficult for immigrant families, regardless of the contributions they have made or the dangers they would face if forced to return home,” she added.
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