A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Immigration attorney Ira Kurzban represented Haitian TPS holders. He was one of the lawyers who fought the Trump administration's efforts to end their TPS at the Supreme Court. He is also author of "Kurzban's Immigration Law Sourcebook." Ira, so there are government websites that say that TPS for Haitians and Syrians is over as of today. But a district judge hasn't lifted the stay yet. When do you think TPS will actually end for them?
IRA KURZBAN: Well, I think it's going to depend on what happens. The mandate is issued by the Supreme Court as of the 27th. It goes to the circuit court. The circuit court then sends it back to the district court judge. The district court judge then has to decide, based on what the Supreme Court has done, to lift the stay or not, and also based on what actions we decide to take over the next 48 hours.
And we're still debating as to what we need to do. We have told the judge we are likely to amend the complaint and move forward in the case. Remember, the case that went to the Supreme Court was based on a temporary record. It was not based on the full discovery and full record that was needed in order to establish many of the things that we were seeking.
MARTÍNEZ: So it might not actually be over today, then, is kind of what you're saying?
KURZBAN: It may not be over today. And in some cases with other TPS holders, they have asked the judge for a stay pending an amendment to their complaints and moving forward. And some judges in other TPS cases have - not Haitians, but other TPS cases - have granted temporary what they call administrative stays.
MARTÍNEZ: So even if these government websites say that it's over as of today, ICE can't begin detaining or deporting people yet?
KURZBAN: Well, they can put whatever they want on the website, of course. That doesn't make it law No. 1.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
KURZBAN: And No. 2, ICE has acted lawlessly in many other situations. So it wouldn't surprise me if they have some plan to begin to try and do this as early as today or tomorrow. But I think the best thing that everyone can do is to get legal assistance because many of the TPS holders have other ways of staying in the United States. And the strategy of this administration has basically been to terrorize the population, whether it's Haitians or other groups, to get them to leave the country because the one major thing that they understand is that you can't deport all of these people.
So their strategy has been, from Day 1, to put people in horrible conditions in detention centers, to terrorize them, to make legal people illegal and then to try and get them to leave voluntarily. And, you know, we have told our clients the best course of action is to find legal help on an individual basis and fight their cases, because many of them have American citizen family members who can apply for them. Many of them have been here for more than 10 years and are eligible for certain benefits called cancellation of removal. Many of them are eligible for political asylum in the United States.
MARTÍNEZ: What are they telling you? Are they worried? Are they scared? Do they have any idea what they might do in the next few days?
KURZBAN: Yeah, I think the community generally has been quite terrorized, I would say, over the last six months, seeing the kinds of things that ICE has done, you know, even executing American citizens, the most recent two killings. These are all, at least in my view, designed to terrorize, you know, not only immigrants, but American citizen family members who may come to their support.
MARTÍNEZ: I know that Florida and New York have the largest populations of Haitian immigrants. President Trump, though, has targeted Springfield, Ohio. Do you expect Springfield will be singled out by ICE if TPS eventually winds down?
KURZBAN: Yeah, I think Springfield will be targeted. But I think they'll probably have targeted operations all over Florida as well.
MARTÍNEZ: OK.
KURZBAN: And it will be an economic disaster for the state of Florida. We have hundreds of thousands of not only Haitians, but their family members, who are U.S. citizens. I think people don't recognize that many of these people have spouses who are U.S. citizens, children who are U.S. citizens. What does that mean if they take their parent and put them in some detention center in Louisiana, where that parent has been the breadwinner for the family? So, yeah, it's going to have an astounding economic effect here in Florida and is going to result, I think, in very severe shortages of labor, and certainly in this state, where there are hundreds of thousands of Haitians.
MARTÍNEZ: Ira Kurzban argued before the Supreme Court this year representing Haitians with TPS. Ira, thank you very much.
KURZBAN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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