Kiley: Ending Haitian TPS in One Move Won’t Remove Them, Just Burdens Welfare System Because Now They Can’t Work

On Friday’s broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-CA) defended his vote to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians by saying that revoking the status won’t cause a significant number to be deported because any efforts will be tied up in court and there are so many Haitians with TPS and if TPS is ended for them in one stroke, “they’re going to be even more of a drain on our public welfare system, because now they don’t have the ability to work. But, even more importantly, once they’ve made that decision that they’re going to stay without authorization, then there’s basically no chance of ever getting them to return home. So, if the goal here is to get as many of them back to their home country as possible, then we need a process.”

Kiley began by saying that the “TPS system is totally broken. It’s a total mess. It’s never temporary.”

He added, “So, yeah, we could revoke TPS status right now, but that’s not going to cause them to go. You know that, Rob, they’re not going to go back. For one thing, there’s a decent chance they’d be kidnapped or raped or murdered if they do go back. So, then you say, well, okay, we can deport them. Well, for one thing, this is going to be tied up in court, perhaps for years more. But even if we tried to do that, there’s just no way we could deport them in any significant number. Biden brought in too many. There [are] 350,000 now. So, the way I see it, if you simply revoke TPS status in one fell swoop, all you’ve done is create 350,000 new illegal immigrants overnight. And so, that’s problematic, on a number of levels. Number one, they’re going to be even more of a drain on our public welfare system, because now they don’t have the ability to work. But, even more importantly, once they’ve made that decision that they’re going to stay without authorization, then there’s basically no chance of ever getting them to return home. So, if the goal here is to get as many of them back to their home country as possible, then we need a process.”

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