Council Member Joseph delivers remarks supporting Resolution 626
Council Member Joseph speaks as a daughter of Haiti and representative of Haitian New Yorkers, describing the 2010 earthquake and the promise of TPS. She says Haiti remains unsafe, TPS was stripped away, and S.4814 is not charity but recognition that Haitians are neighbors and future.
Thank you so much.
This is remarks in support of Reso 4814.
So just want to read remarks in support, Chair.
Thank you, Chair.
So I stand here today as a daughter of Haiti and as the representative of thousands of Haitian New Yorkers who built their lives in this city in good faith under the protection this country promised them.
16 years ago, an earthquake took 300,000 lives in less than a minute.
Out of that devastation, America made a promise, temporary protective status, a chance to work, to raise a family, to breathe without the fear of being sent back into chaos.
That promise still matters today because the chaos never left.
Nearly a million and a half Haitians displaced, millions facing hunger, gangs controlling entire neighborhoods of the capital.
And yet this past year, that protection was stripped away.
First by an agency, then upheld by the Supreme Court.
I've walked the streets of Little Haiti and Flatbush.
I've watched vendors disappear.
Storefronts go dark.
Parents are afraid to send their children to school.
That is what fear does to a community.
That is what we're asking.
to reverse.
S-4814 is not a favor.
It is not charity.
It is a recognition of a simple truth.
Haiti is not safe and the people who fled it are not a threat.
They are our neighbors, our caregivers, our small business owners, our future.
The House had already passed its version.
Now the Senate must act and the president must sign.
In Haiti's motto, it says, L'union fait la force.
Unity makes strength.
That is the spirit of Little Haiti.
That is the spirit of this city.
And today, this council stands behind 40,000 New Yorkers who are counting on us not to look away.
Thank you, Chair.