DAVID MARCUS: The temporary ‘Permanent’ situation is bad for refugees and worse for America
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Democrats across the country are up in arms over the Supreme Court’s decision last week, in the case of Mullin v Doe, which allows the Trump administration to follow through on its plans to return hundreds of thousands of temporary refugees from Haiti and Syria.
The debate over temporary protected status for refugees hinges on that first word, “temporary,” and it makes sense for Americans, who bear the brunt of the burden of caring for these refugees, to question what it really means.
For his part, the Mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, who seems to be the communist leader of the National Democratic Party these days, had this to say: “The Supreme Court has just unleashed the biggest attack on immigrants in modern American history. With one outbreak, thousands of Haitians and Syrians are now at risk of losing the right to live and work in the country they call home.”
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Putting aside the question of whether any of us would call Gracie Mansion home and live with Zo and Rama, what exactly does the word “home” mean here?
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks at a Ramadan Iftar organized by his team at the New York Taxi Workers Association, Wednesday, March 18, 2026, in New York. (Angelina Katsanis/AP)
What is important to understand in thinking about these questions is the main difference between a refugee and an immigrant, and the very different impact these two groups have on the native people they will live with.
For immigrants, the desire, even the need, to adapt to American culture is very important. After all, their children and grandchildren will be living here. But for refugees, there is always a chance that they will return home, hence the word “temporary.”
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The result of this temporary situation, as I have seen on the ground in Springfield, Ohio, and Minneapolis, are thousands of Haitians and Somalis, respectively, who are given a license to live as if they were living at home, all on taxpayer benefits.
Of course, business owners who employ Haitians in Springfield, as well as the Chamber of Commerce and the libertarian Cato Institute, think this is good. They get taxpayer-funded workers, which they say are better than hiring native workers.
Haitian immigrant families enter the T station in Quincy, Massachusetts, on July 26, 2024, as they begin the hour-long journey back to Logan Airport to seek lodging after being released by the Quincy Family Welcome Center. The families, including a group of six from Haiti, had spent several hours looking for a place to stay. (Kayla Bartkowski/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
But according to the people in Springfield I spoke to in 2024, what they’re getting is an influx of 20,000 foreigners into their city of 50,000. The native students told me that the public school became useless, as they tried to accommodate the mostly French-speaking Haitians.
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Meanwhile, parents of young adults in Springfield criticized the current housing shortage, as Haitian refugees rent houses to visit their grandchildren.
Representative Brandon Gill, R-Texas, who has been a champion of these affected communities, explained to X that the problem is much worse than we thought.
“By the way, many of the Haitians granted TPS under Joe Biden did not come from Haiti,” Gill wrote. “They lived in countries like Brazil and Chile and came here to take advantage of Biden’s open border. They weren’t sent to Martha’s Vineyard or Sherman Oaks, but to blue-collar, midwestern towns like Springfield, Ohio. And the people there were called racist for opposing the culture of the city they were building that was being changed in an instant.”
This is really the problem in a nutshell. A temporary situation that lasts for years, or even decades, is bad for refugees, because it does not encourage assimilation. It doesn’t have to be like that.
Harrisonburg, Virginia, has been an official refugee resettlement site for decades and it works because they take in about 200 a year, not tens of thousands. They also teach about language and work. It is a program and it works.
US Supreme Court Justices pose for their official portrait at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC on October 7, 2022. (OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)
In Springfield, we don’t see the plan, but the flood, and not for nothing, the native people almost had no say in this big change in the place they call home.
Sadly, under President Joe Biden and the Democrats, the temporary protectionism has become amnesty, but with many government benefits. These, for the most part, are not people who fear death or punishment in their own country. They just want a better life for us.
It is truly sad that the Biden administration has allowed more than 10 million illegal immigrants and thousands of refugees into the country, because in doing so, it has made normal immigration reform impossible until this damage is repaired.
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The Supreme Court had the right to decide whether the Trump administration can remove these temporary immigrants, and Trump should act forcefully.
In Springfield in 2024, there was a lot of anger from residents who believed that local politicians and officials were selling them out to keep the flow of cheap Haitian labor. They knew they had one option: vote for Donald Trump, which they and millions of frustrated Americans did. Now, Trump can fulfill his promise to them.
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