NY Times: DHS ‘Right to Resist’ Trump Immigration Agenda by Refusing to End De Facto Amnesty for Haitian Nationals

The New York Times editorial board says Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Acting Secretary Elaine Duke was “right to resist” President Trump’s pro-American immigration agenda by refusing to end a de facto amnesty program for Haitian nationals.

In an editorial titled “Let the Haitians Stay,” the New York Times editors pleaded with DHS officials to keep the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program for an estimated 86,000 Haitian nationals running.

Under TPS, Haitian nationals have been able to remain in the United States since 1999 under the temporary amnesty program. Under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the TPS program for Haitians was regularly extended continuously.

As Breitbart News reported, Duke not only refused to end the temporary amnesty for Haitian nationals, but she also advocated for a permanent amnesty solution that could set all foreign nationals in the TPS program on a pathway to U.S. citizenship.

The New York Times editors cheered Duke’s extension of the temporary amnesty for Haitians, writing:

What Elaine Duke, the acting secretary of homeland security, does will be watched closely, not only by Haitians but by others in the Temporary Protected Status program, most of them from Central America. Earlier this month, Ms. Duke ended the protected status of about 2,500 Nicaraguans, but she defied the White House by delaying for six months a decision on a far larger group of about 57,000 Hondurans. The Times reported that Mr. Kelly, as White House chief of staff, has put pressure on Ms. Duke to end the status for both groups. Mr. Kelly’s deputy, Kirstjen Nielsen, is Mr. Trump’s pick as the next head of homeland security and is undergoing confirmation hearings.

Ms. Duke was right to resist the White House, and she was right to include in her decision a call on Congress “to enact a permanent solution for this inherently temporary program,” one that would make it possible for people under temporary protection to seek a more stable and permanent stay in America. And on Thanksgiving Day, the only right decision is to extend our welcome to the Haitians.

DHS has continued to move farther away from Trump’s America First immigration agenda.

In a memo obtained by Breitbart News, top DHS official Jim Nealon said the Trump administration should continue to provide de facto amnesty to nearly 300,000 foreign nationals enrolled in the TPS program.

“While TPS was always meant to be temporary,” Nealon wrote in the memo, these non-citizens “have jobs” in America and “have a very high workforce participation rate, much higher than the national average.”

Likewise, Trump’s incoming DHS nominee Kirstjen Nielsen has said that she believes Americans “owe” amnesty to illegal aliens, while she fail to mention the president’s detailed immigration principles.