In an interview with CTN, Senator Ed Markey said he will spend the coming weeks pressing Republicans to protect Haitian TPS holders, arguing the economic cost of losing them will force red-state lawmakers to the table.
Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts told CTN he intends to spend the coming weeks building a bipartisan coalition to protect Haitian Temporary Protected Status holders, betting that the economic damage of removing hundreds of thousands of workers will pressure Republicans — including those in states that voted for President Trump — to act.
In an interview with CTN’s Emmanuel Paul, Markey, a frequent guest on the network, acknowledged the path is narrow after the termination of Haiti’s TPS was finalized in the courts, but insisted the political ground is shifting. “I think we have a chance over the next several weeks to build a coalition of Republican members of Congress as well, that we have to protect the workforce,” he said.
Where the legislation stands
Markey walked through how the effort reached this point: a field hearing he and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley held on Haitian TPS in Boston earlier this year, followed by Pressley moving legislation through the House that would extend TPS for Haitians through the end of the current presidential term. Markey then brought the companion bill, S. 4814, to the Senate floor two weeks ago with Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, where a Republican objection blocked it.
He recalled Pressley coming to the Senate floor as the measure was debated. “That was inspiring,” he said. Asked which measure is now advancing — the House-passed bill or his Senate version — Markey said the distinction did not matter. “For all intents and purposes, it’s the same legislation. It’s the needed legislation that would be used in order to protect the Haitian TPS holders,” he said. “We have a moral duty to protect TPS holders.”
So far, he said, several dozen Democratic senators have signed on, “and it’s growing by the day.” No Republican has yet joined. But Markey argued the pressure will come from outside Washington. “It will be nursing homes, restaurants, construction companies who are making it very clear to them that they can’t afford to lose these invaluable Haitian workers,” he said.
Markey’s central bet is that the numbers will move Republicans where morality has not. He pointed to Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, who has warned that ending the protection could damage the state’s economy.
“It’s 350,000 people. It’s 45,000 in the state of Massachusetts alone, but they’re in Ohio, they’re in Florida, they’re in states that are considered to be red,” Markey said. He argued the reach extends far beyond Haitians: “Right behind that comes the Salvadorans, the Hondurans. Ultimately, it’s not 350,000, it’s 1.2 million people who could be affected, and that’s going to have a profound impact on our economy.”
He predicted momentum would build once Congress returns in September.
“I think we’re going to complete the organization of all Democrats, and then I think we’re going to start to be able to pick off Republican members of the House and Senate in much greater numbers,” he said.
The conversation turned to the enforcement that Markey said now follows the finalized termination.
“We’re going to see ICE out on the streets terrorizing families, and ultimately taking workers out of critical industries,” he said.
Markey confirmed he co-signed a letter to the Trump administration asking what role federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, would play in deploying ICE or the military into American communities. He said he has not received an answer. “The reason I’m asking the question is I just want to confirm what they’ve already said in public settings before Congress,” he said, referring to testimony from administration officials that, in his account, has not ruled out such deployments. Markey argued the underlying goal is political: to suppress votes “especially for minorities in our country.”
Markey praised Governor Maura Healey and the state legislature for the PROTECT Act, the law signed the same week that bars ICE from making arrests at schools, courthouses, hospitals, and other sensitive locations.
He reached back to Massachusetts history to frame it. “You can go back to Massachusetts in the 1770s when the American Revolution was beginning, and it was John Adams and James Otis who were making it very clear that people have to be protected in their homes and property,” he said. “My hope is that the rest of the country would follow us.”
Throughout the interview, Markey returned to his own neighborhood in Malden, where he said many Haitian families live on his street.
“They’re my neighbors in Malden, living across the street from me, and I think I see them as neighbors. I see them as people who need protection,” he said. He mentioned attending a wake for a neighbor’s relative two weeks earlier. “It’s just part of me. They’re part of my community. They’re part of who I am. And I’m their voice, I’m their vote on the floor of the United States Senate, and I will stand up for them because I live with the Haitian community.”
Asked what he would say to Haitian families living in fear, afraid to go to work or send their children to summer programs as the school year approaches, Markey said the most important thing is to tell the community’s story, and pointed to the contradiction at the heart of the termination.
“The U.S. State Department is saying it’s unsafe for Americans to go to Haiti. Well, if it’s unsafe for Americans to go to Haiti, it should be too unsafe for us to send the Haitian people back to Haiti,” he said. He recalled traveling to Haiti in 2016 after Hurricane Matthew, describing “unbelievably catastrophic conditions.”
Markey said his longer-term goal is not only to restore TPS but to create “a pathway to permanent American citizenship” for Haitian TPS holders, which he tied to Democrats retaking Congress in November.
“Once we win the House and Senate, we’re on our way to giving protection to the Haitian community and all immigrant communities that right now are feeling terrorized,” he said.
He closed with a line he has used before, and repeated for CTN’s audience: the President “says he wants to make America great again. He really wants to make America hate again.”
Sources: CTN interview with Senator Ed Markey, conducted by Emmanuel Paul; CTN prior reporting on H.R. 1689, S. 4814, the Senate floor objection, the finalized Haiti TPS termination, and the Massachusetts PROTECT Act.
https://ctninfo.com/markey-vows-to-b…ce-im-their-vote/
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Editorial Disclaimer:
This article was originally written in English. The French and Haitian Creole versions are produced using AI translation software, and errors are possible — the English version is authoritative. CTN also uses AI to convert text into audio.
