THE AMERICAN DREAM, to Indianapolis resident Jenny Menelas, is seeking out a better life for oneself and their children.
“That’s where my story comes in,” says Menelas, the volunteer executive director of nonprofit Pillars of Haiti, formed last year.
Born in Haiti, where education faces threats due to violence, Menelas immigrated to the United States at age 6 with her parents, who sought a different future for her. Now, she has her master’s degree, is a naturalized citizen, and has lived in Indianapolis for over 14 years. She’s just one of the 20-30,000 Haitians, the Haitian Association of Indianapolis estimates, who call the Circle City home.
But amid U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s plan to end a legal status protecting hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in the United States, which has faced obstacles in court, Menelas worries that “dreamland” is in jeopardy for other Haitians in Indy.
Temporary Protected Status is a legal protection designed for people from a country experiencing ongoing armed conflict, an environmental disaster, or other temporary, extraordinary conditions, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Those under TPS can’t be removed from the United States or detained by immigration officials and are able to apply for other forms of legal protection.
Haiti was first granted TPS in 2010, according to the Federal Register, following a 7.0-magnitude earthquake which killed over 315,000 people, injured another 300,000, and devastated much of the country. That status was subsequently extended several times before being terminated in 2019 under the first Trump administration.
In 2021, then-President Joe Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas again instated an 18-month TPS for Haiti based on violence, its political crisis, human rights violations, and other criteria. That period was extended through February 3, 2026, before Noem tried to terminate protections five months early. That attempt was blocked by a federal judge in July, though a DHS alert says the department “is working to determine next steps.”
Separately, Trump banned all Haitian nationals from entering the United States in June, citing concerns over overstayed visas and national security. The U.S. State Department also warns Americans they should not travel to Haiti, its most severe advisory.
So what will happen, Menelas wonders, to the Haitians forced to return to a country deemed unsafe to travel to?
TPS “gives a temporary reprieve,” she says, “but now we’re talking about taking that reprieve away while the home countries haven’t recovered.”
The legal journey to the United States costs money and takes time, she says, meaning many immigrants will have nothing to return to in Haiti. But even in Indianapolis, where the Haitian population has worked to cultivate a community, the uncertainty of what will happen to TPS is disrupting lives.
Without a clear future for the legal protection, employers take a risk by keeping workers under TPS hired. It’s destabilized the community, Menelas believes, and made Haitians wary of the trust her organization has worked to build through youth events, legal clinics, and other initiatives for immigrants to adapt to Indianapolis.
She hopes those outside the Haitian community can recognize the impacts of immigration policy on their neighbors—and how their own family story may be one of immigrants.
“I think humanizing the situations in that way, I would hope would change the hearts of people,” says Menelas.
