Photo courtesy of Detroit NAACP

By Rev. Dr. Wendell Anthony
President, Detroit Branch NAACP

DETROIT – Words from Emma Lazarus’ poem The New Colossus, “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-tost to me, I
lift my lamp by the golden door,” seem to have been etched from the bronze plaque of the Statue of Liberty. It should now
read, “Don’t give me your tired, your huddled masses, who don’t deserve to breathe free, they lack the pure blood like you
and me, we don’t want you here, if you don’t look like us we don’t want you near.”

The United States Supreme Court has made it very clear that it supports the racist policies and agenda of the Trump Administration to deport millions of Black, brown, and yellow folks who don’t fit the image of President Donald Trump
and Stephen Miller.

They seem to believe in only the purest, most opaque form of whiteness in skin tone and ideological perspective.

The 6-3 ruling gives this regime the right to end the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of those who have been living in the U.S. for decades, who escaped or migrated to this country from wars, catastrophes, and conditions of violence.

Trump and Miller got what they have always been seeking. Trump has called it, “The greatest deportation program in American history.” Stephen Miller, whose parents and other family members, along with the three wives of Donald Trump and their families, immigrated to this country seeking asylum, while reaching for a green card.

This is one of the starkest examples of white supremacist ideology and racial animus for those who are not white Anglo-Saxon and Protestant.

Where are the so-called Christian evangelicals? There is nothing Christlike, loving, caring, or humane about a policy that denigrates a people based on race, color, language or culture.

The Word is, “I was a stranger and you took me in,” Matthew 25:35. More than 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians stand to be uprooted by this ruling.

The holders of Haitian TPS status generate $5.9 billion dollars annually to the U.S economy and contribute $1.5 billion in federal, state and local taxes.
Among Haitian TPS workers are 22,000 cooks and servers, 7,000 factory workers, 8,000
landscapers and hospitality staff, 3,000 school assistants, 13,000 nursing assistants, 14,000 retail staff, 12,000 delivery and taxi drivers, 15,000 agricultural workers, 8,000 caregivers, and 58,000 home health aides.

The American Immigration Council also reports that 112,000 health care workers in America are Haitian born.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research notes that over 21% of Haitian Americans work in the healthcare industry.

Many Haitians, over 520,000, reside
in South Florida. In the state of New York, particularly Brooklyn and Queens, there are over 185,000.

In one of the most hypocritical rulings of the court, Justice Samuel Alito, in his majority opinion wrote, “The plaintiffs were unlikely to prove that race was a motivating factor in the decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation and that the administration’s stated policy views could rest on race neutral justifications.”

The President has openly and clearly referred to Haiti as a “shithole country” and falsely accused the Haitians of Springfield, Ohio of “eating cats and dogs.”

He has accused them of, “Poisoning the blood of our country.” Katie Miller,
wife of Stephen Miller, architect of this Policy of Deportation, posted on X a clip of Trump’s September 2024 Presidential
debate, “Great news for the dogs and cats of Springfield.” This same court in an earlier decision in September 2025, Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem, by a 6-3 margin ruled that ICE agents could use race or language in the work they do or where they happen to be demanding their papers in Los Angeles in order to stop and detain suspected immigrants.

What a contradiction.

A second part of this ruling rests on the “metering” or turn back policy at the border. Justice Alito indicates an alien standing in line does not arrive in the U.S. simply by attempting and failing to set foot in this country.

The others can be turned back.

At the same time the U.S. is planning to send legal immigrants back to Haiti, there is a travel advisory for Americans warning them not to visit Haiti.

It states, “Do not travel to Haiti due to the risk of crime, terrorism, kidnapping, unrest, and
limited health care.” Haiti has been under a national state of emergency since March 2024, with a level 4 travel advisory.

This is the highest level of personal risk when visiting a particular country.

Even more mind boggling is that Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who voted to support this anti-immigrant ruling, has adopted two Haitian children.

One must wonder what these children of Haitian parents, now living in the
United States, feel about the door slammed on others striving for their freedom and opportunity?

Has America not learned the lesson of the M.S. St. Louis of 1939?

The ship departed from Hamburg, Germany to escape the violence of the Nazi’s carrying 937 passengers. Most of them were Jewish refugees.

They eventually sailed to America arriving near the Florida coastline.

They were refused entry to the U.S. by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and were forced back to Europe.

One year later in May 1940, the Nazi’s invaded Europe.

Tragically, 254 of the original passengers were murdered in the Holocaust, which they were attempting to escape.

Today, white South African beneficiaries of the white supremacist system of Apartheid are being welcomed in the United States with open arms.

Black South Africans cannot come in.

The New York Times reports these white refugees will receive a welcome bag containing an android tablet, an American flag, copies of the Constitution, and Declaration of
Independence.

They will also receive a sanitized package of literature which includes a Trump view of American and
South African history with a critique of racial equity and civil rights laws, promoting the discrimination against white people.

On the eve of the commemoration of 250 years of American independence, America must never forget.

In 1779 over 500 free Black Haitians, known as Chasseurs-Volontaires de Saint Dominque, fought for American independence alongside French and Continental troops during the siege of Savannah.

A monument to the Haitian soldiers still stands in the center of Franklin Square in downtown Savannah, Georgia.

America would not be America without the enumerable contribution of its Black and Brown sons and daughters.

Toussaint Louverture, known as the Father of Haiti, cries out from the grave, “We are free today because we are stronger. We will be slaves again when the government becomes the stronger.”

Let us as a people remain strong.