By Jennifer Fernandez

About a week after finishing the Early Childhood Workforce Ready Academy in Wayne County, North Carolina, Dominque McBride walked into Little Bulldogs Academy in Goldsboro.

She carried a packet filled with certifications — such as CPR, first aid, playground safety — that she earned while undergoing intensive training during the two-week academy in February 2024.

At the end of the interview, McBride walked out with a job.

Typically, that type of training can take months to a year to complete, said Shelly Willis, director of program coordination and evaluation with Partnership for Children of Wayne County, which offers the academy.

On top of that, students would have had to pay for the various certifications and classes and squeeze them in between jobs and their lives at home.

But McBride and more than 100 other people got the training for free over the past two years, thanks to grants from the Camber Foundation, according to Valerie Wallace, executive director of the Partnership for Children of Wayne County. She said the organization, which supports community projects in 41 eastern North Carolina counties, has pumped $145,000 into the childcare academies in Wayne and Johnston counties.

McBride said the academy prepared her for her first job in childcare, and made it easy to get all the required certifications and training in one place, in a short time.

“If I had to do it on my own, I think I would have been overwhelmed,” McBride told NC Health News.

Now, state legislators want to take that model and expand it across the state. They included $1.5 million in one-time funding in the state budget passed in July. The training support is part of a slate of efforts added to this year’s budget to tackle staffing shortages and long waitlists for childcare in North Carolina. 

From March 2018 to June 2026, North Carolina has lost a net 1,072 childcare sites, according to the NC Early Care and Learning dashboard. Enrollment dropped by 28,183 children — or 11.5% — during that same time.

The NC Chamber touted such academies as a way to address chronic staffing shortages driving those closures in a February 2025 report.

“If North Carolina is going to produce the qualified workforce necessary to meet the demand for high-quality childcare services in a timely manner, the state must lean less heavily on higher education to train and prepare early childhood professionals and more heavily on strategies that are more accessible, affordable, flexible, and expeditious,” the report’s authors wrote.

‘At a crossroads’

The National Conference of State Legislatures also recently highlighted such academies for quick training to alleviate workforce shortages.

The recommendation is included in the report “Childcare at a Crossroads: A State Legislative Framework for Strengthening Childcare Systems,” released on July 27. The report was developed by a bipartisan work group of 13 state legislators from across the country that included North Carolina state Sen. Jim Burgin, R-Harnett.

The legislators wrote that childcare has become “one of the most urgent and complex challenges facing states.”

“It affects children’s development and well-being, parents’ ability to work, employers’ access to a stable workforce and the economic vitality of communities large and small,” they said in the report. “Rural and urban. Red and blue. No state is unaffected, and no ideology holds all the answers. 

“As costs rise, workforce shortages persist and demand remains strong, state policymakers face important decisions,” the report’s authors continued. “The childcare system is at a crossroads, and decisions made now will shape how well systems meet the needs of families and economies in the years ahead.”

North Carolina has struggled to meet the need. Lack of childcare costs the state $5.65 billion every year in economic activity, according to a 2024 report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, the NC Chamber Foundation, and advocacy organization NC Child.  

Since 2018, childcare employment in the state rose by just 1%, or 419 people, even as the state’s population grew by around a million people. 

Where that growth has occurred has been uneven.

Small centers and family childcare homes make up most of the closures, according to research shared July 9 by Afton Partners, an Illinois-based consultant firm that specializes in several areas, including early education. The group presented the findings earlier in the year to members of the North Carolina Task Force on Child Care and Early Education. 

Meanwhile, more large centers have opened, mainly in urban areas, according to the Afton research.

Many counties, including Wayne, have lost workers and childcare slots from 2018 to 2026. 

In Wayne County, state data shows there are nine fewer childcare facilities than in 2018. Average monthly enrollment dropped by more than 1,000 kids during that same time. And average monthly employment is down by 420 workers.

The state faces a double whammy: demand for more childcare slots and a lack of workers.

The biggest problem in childcare is having qualified teachers, Burgin said as part of a panel discussion on the “Childcare at a Crossroads” report at the National Conference of State Legislatures conference in Chicago last month.

“We’ve made the restrictions so high that by the time that they get enough qualified people on board, those people will go find other jobs, usually in the school system,” he said.

He told the audience that North Carolina directed millions of dollars to tackling the childcare workforce issue in the state’s latest budget.

The bipartisan work group’s report highlighted North Carolina’s childcare academies, like the program in Wayne County.

Other efforts in the report included a high school student training program in South Dakota, scholarships and stipends for people pursuing childcare degrees in Delaware, and a pilot program in New Mexico that gives stipends to people in workforce training for childcare. 

In West Virginia and Rhode Island, there are also apprenticeships that target the childcare work force. 

Like some other states, North Carolina included in its recent budget stipends for graduates who stay with an employer for at least a year.

‘A huge step forward’

The N.C. Child Fatality Task Force has been recommending since 2024 that North Carolina support efforts to improve the childcare system, including increasing subsidies to childcare centers, especially in the wake of additional federal childcare stabilization grants that sunsetted as the COVID pandemic wound down. 

Childcare funding was one of the four task force recommendations for this year.

In July, the General Assembly passed a budget with $97 million in federal funding to increase reimbursement rates to providers of subsidized childcare and to create a much-welcomed floor rate. The budget also transfers $16.8 million from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant to the state’s childcare subsidy program. 

Creating a rate floor means that, for the first time, all facilities will get at least the statewide average for subsidized care. Without that base rate, subsidies have ranged widely across the state, which has made it difficult for some facilities to survive.

The state’s childcare subsidy program uses state and federal money to help pay for childcare for low- to moderate-income families who qualify. Families still have to cover a co-pay. The subsidy can be used for children through age 12, or up to age 18 for children with special needs.

While the state doesn’t set salaries for childcare workers, increasing the subsidy gives providers the flexibility to pay workers more. 

Low pay has been an issue in attracting and maintaining childcare workers. Starting median hourly wages for childcare teachers in 2023 was $14 per hour, according to the 2023 North Carolina Child Care Workforce Study by Early Years (formerly Child Care Services Association.)  That’s the same or less than entry-level jobs at retail stores such as Target and Walmart and fast food restaurants such as Five Guys and Whataburger.

“With our current economic situation and the prices of everything increasing, it is very difficult to stay in the field of childcare and make ends meet with the average pay offered,” McBride said in an email.  

“It’s not only about attracting people to the field, but encouraging them to stay,” she added. 

To quickly train childcare workers, legislators funneled $1.5 million in one-time funding to replicate childcare academies modeled after the program in Wayne County across the state. Two-thirds of that funding will cover tuition costs. The remaining $500,000 will pay for stipends of $500 for every student hired within three months of graduating and who stays employed for at least one year at the same childcare program.

“This funding for child care is a huge step forward in helping to stabilize North Carolina’s child care system,” Kella Hatcher, executive director of the Child Fatality Task Force, said in an email.

A model program

In Wayne County, Wallace and Willis with the Partnership for Children are hoping the increased subsidy rate, along with a new rate floor, will ease high turnover while the academies help train new childcare workers more quickly. 

They’ve had about a dozen people sign up for each session, the most recent of which ran from Aug. 3 through Aug. 14. It was the first of three planned for this year under the Camber grant.

“Those may not seem like high numbers, but if you can put that many people to work, it makes a huge difference in a childcare,” said Wallace. “Our numbers are going to be fewer, but they’re mighty if we give these folks the necessary training that they need.”

Wallace said they’ve tweaked their academy a little bit every year to make it stronger and attract more people.

“We’ve learned with each academy that we’ve done, and last year we worked with the North Carolina Partnership for Children to try to get this to be aligned,” in anticipation of the state creating a pilot program, Wallace said. “So if people were doing it across the state, everybody was doing the same curriculum, and it was going to be consistent with what people were coming out of the academies with.”

They’re not sure if they’ll add more academy classes this year based on what was passed in the state budget. It depends on whether their program is considered aligned with the state plan. They could add up to three more sessions later in the fiscal year based on that state plan, Wallace said.

The training allows students like McBride to be hired immediately.

McBride, 29, was working for the Wayne County Department of Social Services when her mother saw a notice in 2024 about the free training to become a childcare worker. It came at a perfect time for McBride, who was disillusioned with the paperwork involved in her DSS job.

And she always wanted to teach and work with children, she said. In her now-former job at Little Bulldogs, she worked with the 2-year-olds.

“It can be very chaotic,” she said, describing children that age as wanting to be more autonomous but not quite ready for that. “But I enjoyed every bit of it.”

Every day, she saw the need for more childcare workers.

“We weren’t getting enough childcare teachers as much as we were getting kids,” McBride said. “We couldn’t keep up.”

Her work at Little Bulldogs inspired McBride to go back to school for a degree in early childhood education with a focus on special education. She now works with children on the autism spectrum at Action Behavior Center in Clayton.

She’s grateful for Wayne County’s childcare academy.

“It definitely helps you prepare,” she said. “The one thing that can deter you is feeling like you’re not equipped to do it.”

This article first appeared on North Carolina Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Annika E. Ashton is the new Broward County Attorney, becoming the first Black woman and Jamaican American to assume the role.

Ashton, 42, was sworn in last month to replace Andrew Meyers who retired after eight years at the helm.

The Broward County Commission unanimously appointed Ashton, who was the Deputy Broward County attorney, in April 2026 and she took over on September 10, 2026 the official last day of Meyers’ tenure.

She will oversee more than 50 attorneys and a support staff.

Ashton’s appointment reflects overcoming racial and gender barriers to become the chief legal advisor for the county.

The Coral Springs resident thanked the commission and Broward County legal department for their support.
“I’m very excited to work with a really great office of people and have the support of the Broward County Commission,” Ashton said.

Broward County Commissioner Nan Rich called Ashton “the most qualified person to lead the County Attorney’s Office,” noting the county attorney position is one of only three the board is responsible for appointing

Ashton has worked for Broward County since 2014, starting as an assistant county attorney and rose to senior assistant county attorney before becoming deputy county attorney in 2019.

She graduated from Princeton University and Columbia Law School and clerked for the Hon. Adalberto Jordan on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

Ashton’s county work has included litigating federal court cases, drafting ordinances and contributing to the $1 billion expansion of the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale.

She previously did private practice in New York and Miami.

According to her bio, Ashton was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica and raised with deepy family roots in Clarendon, particularly Palmer Cross.

She migrated to the U.S. and graduated from Ft. Lauderdale Boyd Anderson High School, earned her bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and law degree from Columbia Law School.

As the new chief attorney for Broward County, Ashton will provide legal counsel for commissioners and administrators, represent the county in litigation, drafting legal documents including preparing ordinances, government contracts and oversight of zoning issues.

Ashton will also advise commissioners on legal aspects of county projects, developments and public services, including environmental, transportation, and consumer protection issues in Broward County.

She is also a Past President of the Caribbean Bar Association.

Ashton credits her Jamaican upbringing for a stellar legal career.

She said women leadership in Jamaica helped her thrive, studying successful women in business and public service, as well as community figures like Cathy Levy, founder of the iconic Little People and Teen Players Club, who has been a stalwart of youth arts education in Jamaica for decades.

These early influences, along with the cultural ethos of resilience captured in the popular Jamaican refrain, “Wi likkle but wi tallawah,” she notes, helped shape her ambition and belief that she could make a meaningful impact on the world around her.

The post Annika Ashton first Black woman and Jamaican Broward County Attorney appeared first on South Florida Times.

Based on reporting by South Florida Times.

The honorees at the National Civil Rights Museum’s 35th annual Freedom Award ceremony held at the Orpheum Theatre on Thursday, Oct. 1, reflected a changing era of civil rights leadership.

Fred Gray Sr., one of the last surviving legal strategists of the Civil Rights Movement, helped dismantle segregation in America as the lawyer who represented Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. Gray’s pioneering legacy now rests with the generations he helped empower, including fellow award recipients Rev. Shavon Arline-Bradley, Nneka Ogwumike and Bakari Sellers.

Arline-Bradley, an ordained minister, public health advocate, and president and CEO of the National Council of Negro Women since 2023, credits the women and civil rights legends who preceded her and built the organizations she now leads with making her work possible.

Nneka Ogwumike, WNBA champion and four-term president of the league’s players association, and Bakari Sellers, a lawyer, author, CNN political correspondent and former South Carolina legislator, represent a younger generation of human and civil rights activists. They are taking the fight into new arenas, from women’s sports and economic opportunity to voting rights, education and social justice.

Together, their stories shaped the event’s overall theme and mood, which celebrated the courage of freedom fighters of the past while embracing what civil rights leadership looks like now — and what it may become.

Before the ceremony, hundreds of guests gathered for photographs and interviews on the red carpet and hors d’oeuvres at the Halloran Centre for Performing Arts & Education next door to the Orpheum. Actor Larenz Tate hosted the event for the second consecutive year. Grammy Award-winning gospel artist Tamela Mann brought the audience to its feet with her performance of the hit song “Take Me to the King.” And local artist Garry Goin and the Freedom Award House Band performed a mix of R&B and liberation songs.

Taking the stage to accept the first award was Arline-Bradley, who reflected on the legacy that shaped her path to leadership.

“This honor means more to me than you can ever imagine,” Arline-Bradley said, describing the moment as the culmination of what she believes God had in store for her.

She paid tribute to Dorothy Height, whose leadership helped secure the headquarters for the women’s advocacy nonprofit on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. Arline-Bradley described the building, located on the same street as the White House, as a representation of Black women’s history, power and resilience.

“NCNW stands as the only Black and women-owned building on Pennsylvania Ave,” she continued.

During her speech, Arline-Bradley outlined what she believes it will take to achieve freedom and equality today.

“If America wants to get her healing, we’ve got to climb to the rooftop of justice,” she said.

And justice includes using Black economic power to support companies with compatible values, she continued.

Fred Gray Jr. accepted the award on behalf of his father, who was unable to attend the ceremony. Gray, who practices law alongside his father and brother, recalled his father’s decision to become a lawyer and return to Montgomery, Alabama, determined to challenge segregation.

Gray connected his father’s legal work to Memphis’ sanitation workers, whose 1968 strike became a defining moment in the city’s civil rights history. “At 95, if he was here, he would say to you, ‘I have done what I can do. The rest is up to you,’” Gray Jr. said.

Ogwumike used her acceptance speech to connect the growing visibility of women’s sports to a broader conversation about opportunity and equality.

“In this moment, there are greater and more opportunities for girls and women in sports,” Ogwumike said, pointing to the example provided by the WNBA’s professional athletes who serve as role models for young girls.

She also addressed what she described as threats to women’s rights and access, including debates surrounding Title IX, voting rights, reproductive healthcare and gender violence. “We refuse to be bullied and we refuse to be silenced and made to disappear,” Ogwumike said.

Her remarks were followed by a surprise video message from former Vice President Kamala Harris, who thanked Ogwumike for “being a fighter for the people” and congratulated the evening’s other honorees.

The final honoree, Bakari Sellers, has family ties to Memphis. His mother grew up in the city. His grandfather, the Rev. E.W. Williamson, once served as pastor of Middle Baptist Church and Olivet Baptist Church.

Sellers wrapped his remarks in light humor as he reflected on his conversations with other advocates and his own social justice journey. At one point, he paused, overcome with emotion, as he recalled visiting the National Civil Rights Museum earlier in the day and standing on the balcony where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

“The victories they won are being torn down all around us,” Sellers said.

To illustrate the cost and cruelty of social injustice, he asked the audience to imagine a 10-year-old student who might one day cure cancer but is struggling in school because of hunger.

“Somewhere we have forgotten that we come from a people of dreamers,” Sellers said. “We have forgotten the price that was paid.

“I am only 42 years old. I don’t really deserve this thing,” Sellers said. “But I will promise you this: Tomorrow I will work harder than I did yesterday.”

A video montage at the black-tie ceremony paid tribute to influential figures who died this year, including civil rights organizer Bernard Lafayette, a leader in the Nashville Movement, Freedom Rides and the Selma voting rights campaign; Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights icon, minister and founder of Operation PUS;, Memphis civil rights activist Clara Ester; feminist leader and journalist Gloria Steinem; and country music legend and philanthropist Dolly Parton.

Museum President Russ Wigginton commented ahead of the program on the generational evolution of Freedom Award honorees. He noted that earlier generations of civil rights leaders often could measure progress through changes in laws, court decisions and government policy. Marches, sit-ins and other forms of direct action helped produce the landmark legal changes achieved during the Civil Rights era of the 1950s and 1960s.

But today, he said, the work can be more difficult to measure because much of it involves changing hearts and minds, increasing empathy and encouraging people to understand cultural differences.

“It is a delicate balancing act that requires patience and commitment,” Wigginton said.

He added, however, the fundamental goal remains unchanged: equal rights for everyone.

Based on reporting by Tri-State Defender.

Spending time across Southern University’s campus during the day, you feel the rich history and great energy that make the Bluff special. But once the sun goes down, that feeling shifts into a familiar sense of unease.

Returning home from a late-night study session in the library or walking back from your dorm can often feel like a game of avoiding the darkness. There are areas across campus that are terrifyingly pitch black with dying or non-existent lights posted along walking paths meant for students to walk alone. If you find yourself constantly having to squint to see while walking around campus, you can see why safety is such a big issue in students’ minds. The darkest parts of campus are the street where the bandroom is and the streets by dorms. I was driving back to my apartment on campus late one night when suddenly there was someone walking near the road. If my bright headlights weren’t on, I might not have seen them soon enough, and it could have caused an unsafe situation.

The darkness creates daily hazards that go far beyond a simple lack of visibility. Pedestrians are forced to walk directly in the street because sidewalks fade into pitch-black shadows, dodging cars while barely being able to see where they are stepping. At the same time, people are flying by on electric scooters moving through the dark, completely invisible to drivers and walkers because many of their rides lack proper headlights or reflectors. Nagging worry in the back of your mind about whether your car is even going to be in the parking lot or if it’s going to be stolen by morning, and campus life after dark feels entirely too stressful.

When looking at how Southern ranks for safety among HBCUs, Southern often lands in the lower tiers on various college safety and crime-reporting databases, frequently penalized for property concerns and lacking resources. According to PlainCampus, using the U.S. Department of Education Clery data, ranked Southern #1,287 out of 2,072 institutions based on its 2024 reported crime rate, with burglary identified as its largest reported criminal offense category.

A dark campus isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s a hazard that puts students at risk every single night. We shouldn’t have to dodge silent scooters in the middle of the road or cross our fingers every time we look toward the parking lot. It is time for the administration to step up, fix the lights, and make student safety a visible priority.

Based on reporting by Southern University – SouthernDIGEST.

By California Black Media Staff

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Sept. 27 authored by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D-Ladera Heights) that strengthens consumer protections for Californians purchasing tickets to concerts, sporting events and other live entertainment.

Assembly Bill 1349 expands state regulation of original ticket sellers, resellers and online resale marketplaces. The law targets deceptive sales practices, ticket-buying software and speculative listings — tickets advertised for sale by sellers who do not possess them or have authorization to sell them.

“Buying a ticket shouldn’t come with hidden risks or unfair practices,” Newsom wrote on social media after signing the measure.

Under AB 1349, ticket sellers are prohibited from listing tickets before they have been officially released unless they have authorization or a legally enforceable right to receive them. Online marketplaces must also take reasonable steps to prevent speculative ticket sales on their platforms.

The law prohibits sellers from using bots, multiple accounts, email addresses or internet protocol addresses to circumvent ticket limits, presale restrictions, electronic queues and other controls. It also bans websites and advertisements designed to mislead buyers into believing they are purchasing tickets from an authorized seller, venue or event organizer.

Sellers who violate certain provisions and fail to provide a promised ticket may be held liable for twice the ticket’s contracted price. Buyers may also recover nonrefundable expenses incurred while attempting to attend an event, along with reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs.

Pastor Tecoy Porter Sr., president of the National Action Network’s Sacramento chapter, said the law establishes needed accountability.

“Buying a ticket to a concert or show shouldn’t mean entering a marketplace where the rules are stacked against you. This year, we worked with a coalition of consumers, civil rights advocates, community groups, and businesses to make AB 1349 stronger. Consumers deserve enforceable rules that protect them. We thank Assemblymember Bryan for his leadership, and we will keep working to make ticketing fair for every Californian.”

Jose L. Barrera, national vice president for the Far West Region of the League of United Latin American Citizens, also praised the measure.

“Californian families deserve certain protections when they buy tickets. Assemblymember Bryan listened to communities across California and delivered a bill that puts fans first. We thank him and Governor Newsom for making it law.”

By Wade Henderson, Esq.

There are moments when a nation must decide, not simply what it has the legal power to do, but what its sense of humanity requires it to do.

The treatment of more than 300,000 Haitians living and working in the United States under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) presents such a moment. The Senate should pass S.4814, legislation that would extend TPS for Haitians for three years. The Senate’s Republican members hold a critical key to whether Congress will act before the midterm elections.

There are several reasons that the Haitian TPS question is a genuine crisis.  First and foremost, Haiti is dangerously unsafe, and the justification for TPS could hardly be clearer.

Haiti continues to experience extraordinary violence and instability. United Nations and human-rights organizations report killings, kidnappings, sexual violence, displacement and widespread abuses by armed gangs. Millions of Haitians face acute humanitarian needs.[1]

Most tellingly, the U.S. Department of State warns Americans: “Do Not Travel” to Haiti, citing kidnapping, crime, terrorism, civil unrest and limited health care.[2]

That warning raises an unavoidable question: If Haiti is too dangerous for Americans to travel there, how can it be considered safe to compel more than 300,000 Haitians to return?

Congress created TPS precisely for circumstances in which armed conflict or extraordinary conditions make safe return impossible or inappropriate.[3] The documented conditions in Haiti meet that humanitarian standard many times over.

Let’s also clear up another misimpression.  The Supreme Court in its June 25, 2026 decision in Mullen v. Doe did not order TPS to end and it did not order Haitians to be deported. 

Rather, the Court ruled that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had the primary responsibility to decide when to grant TPS and that its decisions were not, in most instances, judicially reviewable.[4]

The decision therefore permitted the Administration’s termination of Haitian TPS to proceed, but the humanitarian question of whether it should proceed remains with the political branches. In other words, Congress retains its legislative authority to act.  S.4814 is Congress exercising that authority.

For Haitians living under the threat of deportation, this is not an abstract legal dispute.  The human cost is becoming painfully real.

Consider Pierre Damas Bel, a 20-year-old Haitian college student with a promising future, who lived in Springfield, Ohio. After losing his immigration protection, he was placed on an ICE ankle monitor. His family has described the profound psychological distress he experienced.

Bel subsequently died after stopping his car and walking into traffic on a crowded Ohio highway. His family believes it was suicide  Authorities are investigating, and it would be irresponsible to claim that immigration policy alone caused his death. But his tragic story illustrates the human consequences of creating fear and uncertainty for people who have lived, studied and worked lawfully in this country and have no immediate expectation of returning home safely.[5]  

There also is another compelling reason for Congress to act: Haitian TPS holders are caring for Americans.

Approximately 21,000 Haitian TPS holders work as caregivers and nursing assistants, serving an estimated 77,000 patients nationwide.[6] They care for seniors in nursing homes, assist people with disabilities and provide home care that allows vulnerable Americans to remain in their communities. 

When experienced Haitian caregivers lose their legal ability to work, families must scramble to find replacements, nursing facilities face staffing shortages, and vulnerable people can lose caregivers they have trusted for years.

At a time when America already faces a serious shortage of direct-care workers, deporting thousands of experienced Haitian caregivers is not merely inhumane, it’s self-defeating and contrary to our nation’s own healthcare needs.[7]

The mass deportation of Haitians also presents a troubling humanitarian double standard that Congress should confront.

The Trump Administration has made a special effort to admit White South African Afrikaners as refugees, citing racial persecution and violence — a dubious claim at best. At the same time, it is stripping protection from Haitians whose country is experiencing catastrophic violence, death and insecurity.

The State Department currently rates South Africa for travel recommendations at Level 2—“Exercise Increased Caution.” Haiti is at Level 4—“Do Not Travel.”[8]

Every person facing genuine persecution deserves humanitarian consideration and protection, but humanitarian standards should be applied consistently. If America can recognize humanitarian danger facing White South Africans, surely it can recognize the documented and extraordinary danger confronting Black Haitians.

The disparity deserves congressional scrutiny—not because one group should receive less protection, but because humanitarian protection should not depend upon race or political convenience.

Finally, the Haitian TPS question should not be reduced to a partisan argument.

Republican Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has criticized the Administration’s approach to Haitian immigrants and warned of the consequences of ending TPS. Democratic Maryland Governor Wes Moore has likewise expressed opposition to returning Haitians to dangerous conditions.[9]

These governors understand that immigrants are not merely immigration cases. They are workers, taxpayers, caregivers, parents, students, neighbors and members of their communities.

The House of Representatives has already taken action and passed a bill to restore Haitian TPS. 

The Senate’s Haitian TPS bill (S.4814) offers a measured response: three additional years of protection while Haiti confronts its extraordinary crisis. It is not amnesty! It does not grant citizenship or permanent residence. It does not repeal America’s immigration laws. It does, however, provide important and humane temporary protection while conditions make return to Haiti unsafe.

Our history tells us what happens when government treats human beings with hostility and indifference, and regards humanitarian appeals as inconveniences to be overcome.

America can and must do better.

The Senate now has an opportunity to demonstrate that America’s humanitarian principles apply consistently—to Black immigrants as well as everyone else.  Republican senators hold a critical key to bipartisan action. Before the midterm elections, they should join Democrats in responding to this humanitarian imperative. 

Our nation’s sense of humanity demands it.

Wade Henderson, Esq. is a civil and human rights attorney in Washington, DC.  He serves as a Senior Advisor to the Haitian Bridge Alliance.

Endnotes

1. United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), Human Rights Reports; Human Rights Watch, World Report 2026: Haiti.
2. U.S. Department of State, Haiti Travel Advisory, Level 4—“Do Not Travel.”
3. 8 U.S.C. §1254a(b)(1).
4. Mullin v. Doe / Trump v. Miot, U.S. Supreme Court, June 25, 2026.
5. Washington Post, “College student steps into traffic, is killed after losing immigration status,” Sept. 1, 2026; ABC News, Sept. 1, 2026. Authorities continue to investigate Bel’s death.
6. Reuters, “US families, healthcare providers under strain after Trump crackdown on Haitian immigrants,” Aug. 19, 2026.
7. Id.; see also reporting by LeadingAge concerning the impact of ending Haitian TPS on senior and disability care.
8. U.S. Department of State, Haiti Travel Advisory; South Africa Travel Advisory.
9. Reporting on statements by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore concerning Haitian TPS.