BS BULLETIN:
- Journalist Mehdi Hasan erupted over images of Haitian deportees in shackles, declaring that he will “never forgive the tens of millions of Americans who voted for this.”
- The outrage follows DHS releasing video of Haitian nationals being deported in chains aboard a flight to Haiti, accompanied by upbeat Haitian music and the warning: “LEAVE IMMEDIATELY or be DEPORTED.”
- Deportations have accelerated after the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for roughly 350,000 Haitians and prevailed in its legal fight before the Supreme Court.
Mehdi Hasan has apparently reached the forgiveness portion of America’s immigration debate.
And tens of millions of Trump voters aren’t getting any.
Hasan erupted Monday over the Trump administration’s treatment and deportation of Haitian nationals, sharing photographs of people wearing ankle monitors and shackles.
“I’ll never forgive the tens of millions of Americans who voted for this,” Hasan wrote on X.
He wasn’t done.
“They wanted this. They cheered for this. They lied about and smeared Haitians, specifically, in order to get this,” he continued.
Then came the kicker:
“It’s utterly shameful. And it’s going to get worse.”
Quite an indictment.
Not just of Trump.
Not just of DHS.
Of the voters.
Hasan’s post came as anger builds over the administration’s deportation push involving Haitian nationals who lost Temporary Protected Status this summer.
And DHS hasn’t exactly been handling the operation quietly.
The department recently posted video showing Haitian men in chains and shackles being led through the rain onto an aircraft.
The soundtrack?
Upbeat Haitian music.
“Those with terminated TPS are in our nation Illegally,” DHS wrote.
“They have two options: LEAVE IMMEDIATELY or be DEPORTED.”
That presentation produced an immediate backlash.
Haitian-American groups called the video “reprehensible,” while Democratic lawmakers accused the administration of deliberately humiliating people being deported.
Reps. Yvette Clarke and Ayanna Pressley, co-chairs of the House Haiti Caucus, released an extraordinary statement Monday.
“Today, thousands of Haitians are in chains because Donald Trump decided their lives are a crime,” they declared. “The Trump Administration has declared Haiti unsafe to travel to, and in recent days alone, gang massacres have left dozens dead, more have been kidnapped, and some of the Haitians this administration deported have already been killed.”
There is no question that Haiti is a dangerous place.
Gang violence has consumed much of the country, and Port-au-Prince remains so dangerous that the first U.S. deportation flight after TPS protections ended landed in Cap-Haïtien instead.
More than 160 Haitian nationals were aboard that first flight.
The legal backdrop is also important.
Temporary Protected Status is precisely what its name suggests: temporary protection allowing nationals of designated countries experiencing war, disaster or other extraordinary conditions to remain and work legally in the United States.
The Trump administration determined that Haiti’s designation should end.
After a lengthy court fight, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in June that DHS’s TPS determination could take effect, clearing the way for the protections covering roughly 350,000 Haitians to expire July 27.
ICE has also begun requiring some Haitians to wear electronic ankle monitors as immigration enforcement intensifies. That has produced some of the images Hasan shared.
The New York Times reported from Springfield, Ohio, that Haitian residents have been summoned to ICE offices and fitted with the devices.
One volunteer helping immigrants compared the monitors to “shackles.” “They’re slapping them on the elderly,” she said. “Yesterday I saw a grandma.”
Those images are unquestionably powerful. But Hasan’s leap from condemning government policy to declaring that he will “never forgive” the tens of millions of Americans who voted for Trump is something else entirely.
Trump did, of course, campaign on mass deportations and tougher immigration enforcement. Voters weren’t exactly kept in the dark about that.
Hasan has reduced all of them to one collective moral verdict.
They “wanted this.” Every last shackle. That’s a pretty sweeping judgment to make about tens of millions of your fellow citizens.
DBS WIRE SOURCES
- Twitchy — Mehdi Hasan Won’t Forgive the Tens of Millions of Americans Who Voted to Put Haitians in ‘Shackles’
- NBC 6 South Florida — Haitian community outraged by “reprehensible” video posted by DHS
- CBS News — First deportees arrive in Haiti after U.S. ends TPS protection: “They just sent me here”
- The New York Times — Ankle Monitors Leave Haitians in Ohio Feeling Shaken and Shackled
- Rep. Yvette Clarke — Clarke and Pressley, Co-Chairs of the Haiti Caucus, Condemn Deportation and Dehumanization of Haitian Nationals
