‘The streets are empty:’ How Miami’s Little Haiti reacted to losing TPS - USA Today
The end of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian immigrants has caused widespread fear and economic decline in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood. Residents are avoiding public spaces due to concerns over potential deportation and increased ICE activity.
Why it matters
The policy change is having a tangible, negative impact on the cultural and economic fabric of immigrant communities in the United States.
Hear this story MIAMI – Jean-Marie Denis raised a metal gate and unlocked his Little Haiti bookstore , stocked with books printed in Creole and French.
His shop sits next door to the Little Haiti cultural complex, designed like a turn-of-the-century Haitian gingerbread house painted in vivid Caribbean yellow and teal. Nearby is a Haitian Christian church, the Haitian restaurant Piman Bouk, Haitian murals reading “Help! Haiti is being strangled,” and an elementary school named for Toussaint Louverture, who led the slave revolt that liberated the island nation.
Denis, who goes by Jan Mapou after his store, Libreri Mapou, has long been a fixture in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood , a refuge since the 1970s for Haitians fleeing dictators and political unrest. It remained the historic heart of America’s largest Haitian diaspora through Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, a 2021 presidential assassination and the government collapse into gang warfare.
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