When Wesly Simon walked into his Brooklyn restaurant on Monday, July 27, he immediately checked the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website. An alert said Temporary Protected Status for Haiti had been terminated, effective that day. As a result, the employment authorizations for nine of his employees were no longer valid. He could no longer employ them.
Simon owns Djon Djon restaurant in Brooklyn’s Little Caribbean neighborhood, one of the areas with the highest concentration of Black Caribbeans in New York. For years, he employed Haitian immigrants with Temporary Protected Status (TPS). They cooked, cleaned dishes and served customers. Now, Simon, a long-time naturalized citizen, works double shifts every day to keep the doors open.
“I can only help so much until I start hurting business to a point,” Simon said. “If ICE walks in, we won’t be able to pay all this fine because those guys starting the fines are from $800 to $28,000. It’s a very high fine to pay.”…