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Haitians in the American diaspora are under fire for their lack of political foresight and feeling of community after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to go ahead with its plan to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for about 350,000 Haitians.
Haitians in the American diaspora are under fire for their lack of political foresight and sense of community after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to move forward with its plan to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for about 350,000 Haitians. These compatriots are being targeted for their behavior during the elections that sent Donald Trump to the White House for a second time, despite his clear intent to drive out Haitian immigrants. According to critics, some Haitians, especially those close to religious communities, didn’t grasp the need to take actions that could have prevented their fellow countrymen from suffering.Immigration lawyer Frandley Denis Julien, speaking on Magik 9 on Friday, June 26, 2026, believes that the criticism against Haitians close to the religious sector is justified. Mr. Julien, who is very involved in the community, denounces what he calls ‘a short-sightedness’ in the religious sector.
“Haitian churches are shortsighted in the way they work within the community. They focus on issues like homosexuality and abortion, which echo Republican talking points, without considering the hypocrisy. Many Republicans who claim to fight against homosexuality are actually gay. Haitian churches don’t get the demagoguery involved in the issue,” laments Frandley Denis Julien. “Churches don’t understand that there’s something way more important for the community, which is survival,” he insists.Me Julien also acknowledged that several Haitian churches got a lot of money from Republicans during the election campaign to support Donald Trump. “That’s why many Haitian pastors who supported Kamala Harris at the start of the campaign switched sides,” Me Julien revealed.
“When pastors said, for example, if you’re a Christian, vote according to your faith, vote for people like you, those were speeches supporting the Republicans. But if pastors had focused on survival, their followers would have voted differently. There was a lot of dishonesty in the religious sector,” believes Frandley Denis Julien.The lawyer took advantage of his appearance on the show Panel Magik to urge Haitians in the diaspora to learn from the last elections by getting much more involved in the community. “The diaspora in the USA has the same problems as Haitians in Haiti. We don’t have citizens. We have a crisis of citizens. They don’t understand the need to have good representation in the country. They don’t get involved. They also don’t support those who dare,” said Me Julien, pointing out that Haitians have a low rate of participation in the political process.”What we project as power in American politics doesn’t reflect what we could actually project if we had engaged citizens. The Haitian diaspora isn’t respected in the USA simply because we don’t know how to defend ourselves, how to defend our interests. We have lots of individual successes, but not a united and involved community,” laments the immigration lawyer.
