By: Christiana Best-Giacomini, Ph.D.
June 30, 2026
As a Black immigrant from the Caribbean, immigration has never been an abstract topic for me. When I see Haitian families targeted in Springfield, Ohio, or hear political leaders use harmful rhetoric about immigrants, I do not just see headlines. I see my family. I see my neighbors. I see my students and colleagues. I see the people who raised me and the communities that shaped who I am.
Across the Caribbean, migration is part of our story. Many of us, or people we love, have moved in search of education, work, safety, or opportunity. We know what it means to leave home while holding onto our culture, our traditions, and our hopes. Yet the conversation about immigration in the United States rarely reflects that. It treats immigrants as one group, erasing the distinct experiences of Black immigrants, especially those from the Caribbean.
Black immigrants face a troubling reality. We are often invisible in policy debates and media coverage, until we become the focus of enforcement, detention, or deportation. Our stories are ignored until we become the subject of enforcement.
Recent events have made this painfully clear.
On June 25, 2026, the United States Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti and Syria, overturning lower court rulings that had blocked the move. The decision puts roughly 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians at risk of losing protection from deportation and the legal right to work in the United States.
For Caribbean people, this is not just another immigration story. It is about families who, have built lives, raised children, paid taxes, and contributed to their communities for years, only to be told their place is no longer secure.
Haiti first received TPS after the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010, which killed hundreds of thousands and displaced over a million people. Since then, Haiti has faced crisis after crisis: political instability, natural disasters, gang violence, food insecurity, and the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. These ongoing emergencies are exactly why TPS protections were extended repeatedly.
This latest decision is not happening in isolation. It is part of a pattern in which Black immigrants are made to constantly prove that they deserve protection, compassion, and the right to stay with their families.
Equally troubling has been the misinformation targeting Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. False claims that Haitians were stealing and eating pets spread quickly on social media and were then repeated by national political figures, even after local officials confirmed there was no truth to the allegations.
These were not harmless rumors. They echoed old, dangerous stereotypes that have long portrayed Black people as primitive and less than fully human. Historically, that kind of language has been used to justify discrimination and violence. In Springfield, the impact was immediate: bomb threats, school closures, harassment, and widespread fear in the Haitian community.
The treatment of Haitians at the southern border tells a similar story. Many Caribbean people will not forget the images from Del Rio, Texas, where mounted Border Patrol agents pursued Haitian asylum seekers along the Rio Grande. For many people of African descent, those images brought up painful memories of slavery and colonial violence. They became symbols of a hard truth: immigration enforcement does not happen in a racial vacuum. It is shaped by a long history of anti-Blackness that still influences whose suffering is taken seriously and whose is dismissed.
Together, the end of TPS, the false stories in Springfield, and the scenes at the border reveal a clear pattern. Black immigrants are too often seen as threats rather than neighbors, as burdens rather than contributors, as outsiders rather than the community members they truly are.
As people from the Caribbean, we cannot treat this as someone else’s fight. Haiti’s story is part of our story. The dignity of Haitians is connected to the dignity of our entire region.
Today it is Haitians being targeted. Tomorrow it could be Jamaicans, Trinidadians, Grenadians, Barbadians, Vincentians, Dominicans, or any Caribbean people whose belonging is suddenly questioned.
Our shared history tells us that migration has always been part of who we are. So has resilience. But resilience is not enough on its own. We must speak truth, push back against misinformation, challenge racism when we see it, and stand together.
Our humanity should never depend on politics. Our belonging should never be conditional. And our voices must keep saying what history has too often denied: every person deserves dignity, justice, and the freedom to live without fear, no matter where they were born or what they look like.
(Dr Christiana Best is an Associate Professor at the University of Saint Joseph, Connecticut)
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