City of Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins issued a warning regarding the impact of federal immigration enforcement and the looming expiration of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for thousands of South Floridians.
Speaking as part of a bipartisan panel of mayors on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on CBS News Sunday, Higgins described a climate of “fear and terror” gripping her city. Sunday’s panel included Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt and Mayor Mark Freeman of Mesa, Arizona, reflecting a spectrum of city leaders who are grappling with the national immigration debate.
She specifically highlighted a “lack of humanity” in current enforcement tactics and warned that local health care systems are on the brink of a crisis.
A community in hiding
While responding to Brennan’s questions regarding the 7% of Florida’s population that is undocumented, Higgins acknowledged that while the city currently complies with state-mandated cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), she is limiting that involvement to the bare minimum.
“We are going to comply with the law, but we are not going to help beyond that,” Higgins said. “ICE and its tactics have been in my community for over a year… causing great fear and terror in our residents.”
She noted that the aggressive enforcement has driven residents into hiding, with families reporting disappearances of loved ones and children being pulled out of school.
The midnight deadline for Haitian Americans
The most immediate concern, Higgins said, is the expiration of TPS for South Florida’s Haitian community, which is scheduled for Tuesday at midnight. She emphasized that the loss of legal status for these individuals isn’t just a humanitarian crisis, but an economic one as well.
According to Higgins, approximately 15% of the local population holds TPS and 20% of Haitian TPS recipients work in the health care sector, bringing great risk to nursing homes, home health care services, hospitals and physician clinics.
“On Wednesday, we’re talking about nursing homes, home health care aides, hospitals… all of them are going to be out of a job when they wake up on Wednesday morning because their legal pathway and status is going to be revoked,” she said.
Call for executive action
Higgins called on the federal government to immediately extend TPS for both Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants, saying that the status of many Venezuelans was “erased with the stroke of a pen.”
“Haiti is not safe, Venezuela is not safe,” she said. “Our economy is at stake and our humanity is at stake.”
