UNITE HERE President Gwen Mills released the following statement:

The Supreme Court’s ruling today on Haitian TPS is a disgrace. It is an insult to the hundreds of thousands of Haitian workers who currently hold legal status, have registered with the government, and passed background checks. It sends a message that we are not really a country of consistent or fair rules and laws. We are enraged and heartbroken for the families and children – many of whom are UNITE HERE members – who will lose their right to live and work here and be thrust into poverty and precarity.

With this decision, the White House and the Supreme Court have further compromised our hospitality sector, in which many thousands of Haitian TPS holders work. Our industry is already reeling from White House immigration policy, which has tanked foreign visitation, slashed the number of eligible workers in the sector, and made existing jobs more stressful and difficult. Haitian TPS holders alone add nearly $6 billion to the economy every year and do essential work in hotels, restaurants, gaming, and food service. This is another signal to both the workers and employers in the hospitality sector that the White House is happy to see our industry crash to score points with anti-immigrant extremists.

Today’s ruling drives home how catastrophic the “temporary” part of TPS status is for immigrant workers and our country as a whole. If you live and work here and you’re doing everything right, you should have a path to citizenship. It’s going to take a fundamental change in our country’s politics to get there. But the workers currently fighting for their economic lives are prepared to lead us through it. That is the work of our union and the Labor Movement in the months and years ahead.

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UNITE HERE is a labor union that represents 300,000 working people across Canada and the United States. UNITE HERE members work in the hotel, gaming, food service, manufacturing, textile, distribution, laundry, transportation, and airport industries.