Farmworkers in Immokalee: Haitian TPS in Rural Florida

The sun rises over Immokalee at 6:37 a.m. on July 29, 2026, two days after the expiration of Temporary Protected Status for approximately 350,000 Haitians across the United States. In the tomato fields that stretch for miles around this small rural town in Collier County, the harvest continues. The fruit does not wait for Congress. The vines do not care about Supreme Court decisions. But the hands that pick them are attached to human beings whose legal right to work in the United States has just been extinguished. Immokalee, a town of approximately 24,557 residents located 35 miles inland from the Gulf Coast resorts of Naples, is one of the most important agricultural production centers in the southeastern United States. Collier County agriculture generates $3.84 billion annually, and the work that produces that staggering figure is performed disproportionately by Haitian and other immigrant farmworkers (Kahar et al. 4). Roughly 30 percent of Immokalee's residents are migrant farmworkers, and in the Farmworker Village neighborhood, 23.7 percent identify as Haitian (Martinez). With 12,000 Haitian TPS agricultural workers across Florida's farms, the termination of TPS represents not merely a humanitarian crisis but an existential threat to the agricultural economy of an entire region (FWD.us 2). This blog, the twenty-fourth and final installment in a series examining the consequences of the Supreme Court's decision in Mullin v. Doe, examines the specific impact of TPS termination on the Haitian farmworker community of Immokalee. It is a story of exploitation and organization, of brutality and resilience, of a community that has transformed its conditions through collective action and now faces the potential unraveling of everything it has built. It is also a story about the food on American tables and the invisible hands that put it there. The Historical Roots: Haitians in Immokalee Agriculture The presence of Haitian workers in Florida's agricultural fields predates TPS by decades. In 1965, the H-2 migrant program began admitting temporary workers from Caribbean sugar-producing countries, including Haiti, to address labor shortages in Florida's expanding agricultural sector (Martinez). The swamp-like conditions of Florida's cane fields meant that sugarcane had to be cut manually, grueling work that required strength and endurance. Plantation owners preferred workers from Haiti because they had experience with sugar cultivation and could be recruited through a system that gave employers enormous control over their labor force. The H-2 program, ostensibly a guestworker initiative, functioned in practice as a system of near-indentured labor. Workers were bound to a single employer, housed in company-owned barracks, and paid wages that were often consumed by deductions for housing, food, transportation, and recruitment fees. The Zinn Education Project notes that "the CIW's organizing against involuntary servitude has been central in shining a spotlight on various cases of modern-day slavery in Immokalee" ("Coalition of Immokalee Workers"). Debt peonage, in which workers found themselves owing more to their employers than they could ever earn, was endemic. During the 1960s, the United States also implemented the Bracero Program, which opened a legal pathway for farmers to import Mexican laborers. Both programs funneled workers into Florida's agricultural hub, where Immokalee's sugar, tomato, and other farms employed large numbers of Haitian and Mexican workers. The exploitation they faced was extraordinary. According to reports cited by the Peoples Dispatch, Haitian and Mexican workers in the 1960s and 1970s "made less than USD 3 per ton of cut cane," and "employers often make deductions for housing, food, the daily ride to the fields, the H-2 visa, and other fees," creating a system of debt peonage that "forces workers to labor to pay off their debt" (Martinez). The conditions in Immokalee's fields were not merely exploitative; they were, in many cases, brutal. Workers performing stoop labor in the tomato fields endured 10 to 12 hours under the Florida sun, bending at the waist to pull ripe fruit from low-growing vines. Pay was calculated by the bucket: 45 to 50 cents per 32-pound bucket of tomatoes. To earn a living wage, a worker had to pick two to three tons of tomatoes per day. Water breaks were often denied. Restrooms in the fields were nonexistent. Heat stroke was a constant risk, and supervisors who pushed workers to the point of collapse faced no consequences (Fair Food Standards Council 12). An In These Times investigation from January 2004 exposed the scope of exploitation in Immokalee's fields. Reporter Esther Kaplan documented how "migrant pickers have been held against their will, forced to work under armed guard, and beaten when they tried to escape" (Kaplan). The article detailed six major slavery prosecutions that had emerged from Immokalee in the preceding years, involving over 1,000 workers who had been subjected to conditions that prosecutors described as modern-day slavery. These prosecutions, which continued through the following decade, would ultimately involve more than 1,200 workers across nine major cases (Martinez). "I am not a tractor!" : Coalition of Immokalee Workers rallying cry (Zinn Education Project) The Work Itself: What Farm Labor in Immokalee Demands To understand what is at stake with the termination of TPS, it is necessary to understand what farm work in Immokalee actually requires. The tomato harvest, which is the centerpiece of Immokalee's agricultural economy, is one of the most physically demanding occupations in the United States. Workers walk an average of eight to ten miles per day through muddy fields, bent at the waist, scanning for ripe fruit. Each 32-pound bucket must be carried to the end of the row and loaded onto trucks. The pace is relentless: a skilled picker can fill 200 to 300 buckets in a single day, which means lifting and carrying between 6,400 and 9,600 pounds of tomatoes. The Florida summer heat adds a dimension of danger that is difficult to overstate. From May through September, temperatures in Immokalee regularly exceed 95 degrees Fahrenheit, with humidity pushing the heat index well above 105 degrees. Workers in the fields are exposed to this heat for hours at a time with limited shade. The consequences can be deadly. A study by Kahar et al. on the Immokalee Health Project found that "agricultural workers in Immokalee face elevated risks of heat-related illness, chronic kidney disease, and musculoskeletal disorders directly attributable to working conditions" (Kahar et al. 8). The study documented that prolonged exposure to heat without adequate hydration and rest periods leads to irreversible kidney damage, a condition so common among Central American and Caribbean farmworkers that it has acquired its own name: Mesoamerican nephropathy. Before the reforms brought by the Fair Food Program, which will be discussed in detail below, conditions in Immokalee's fields were even more severe. Wage theft was rampant: workers reported being paid for fewer hours than they worked, being charged for equipment that should have been provided free of charge, and having their pay withheld entirely if they complained. The piece-rate system, in which workers are paid by the bucket rather than by the hour, created perverse incentives for employers to push workers faster and harder. There was no guarantee of access to drinking water, no requirement for shade, no mechanism for reporting abuse without fear of retaliation (CIW, "Fair Food Program"). The CIW website documents the conditions that preceded the Fair Food Program: "Before the FFP, farmworkers in Florida's tomato fields worked under conditions that had not changed substantially since the days of Jim Crow. They were excluded from most workplace protections, denied overtime pay, and subjected to verbal abuse, physical intimidation, and sexual harassment with no avenue for recourse" (CIW, "About"). Workers who attempted to organize or complain were routinely fired and blacklisted, unable to find work on any farm in the region. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers: Building Power from the Ground Up In response to these conditions, Haitian, Mexican, and Guatemalan farmworkers in Immokalee came together in 1993 to form the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). The organization was founded at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, a Catholic parish that served as a gathering place for the community. The founding members recognized that only through collective action could they challenge the power of growers who had dominated Florida's agricultural economy for generations (Martinez). The CIW's approach was rooted in popular education and worker leadership. Unlike traditional labor unions, which often rely on professional organizers and hierarchical structures, the CIW was built on a model of worker-to-worker education. Lucas Benitez, a Mexican farmworker who became one of the CIW's most prominent leaders, described the philosophy in terms that echoed the liberation theology that had shaped social movements across Latin America. The Zinn Education Project explains that the CIW's approach was deliberately nonhierarchical: "no singular leader, no hierarchy of moral authority, no person whose reputation placed them beyond accountability. Instead, workers educated workers. Women organized women. And power was explicitly collective and deliberately decentralized" ("Coalition of Immokalee Workers"). The CIW's early campaigns focused on wage theft and working conditions. Workers conducted strikes and walkouts, demanding better pay and an end to the most egregious abuses. In 1997, the CIW helped prosecutors bring the first forced labor prosecution in Immokalee's history, a case that exposed a crew leader who had held workers against their will in a labor camp surrounded by barbed wire. The case resulted in convictions and established a pattern of collaboration between the CIW and federal prosecutors that would continue for decades (Kaplan). The CIW rapidly expanded its activities, developing a sophisticated array of tactics that included marches, hunger strikes, and consumer boycotts. In 2000, the organization organized a 230-mile march from Fort Myers to Orlando, with workers walking along the shoulders of Florida's highways to draw attention to their conditions. The march, which took 11 days, culminated in a rally at the steps of the state capitol and generated national media coverage (Wikipedia, "Coalition of Immokalee Workers"). The most significant shift in the CIW's strategy came with the recognition that traditional labor organizing, which focused on pressure on employers, had limited effectiveness in an industry where growers faced intense competition and thin profit margins. The CIW realized that the real power in the agricultural supply chain lay not with growers but with the massive corporate buyers who purchased their product: fast food chains, supermarket conglomerates, and food service companies. If these corporations could be persuaded to demand humane labor practices from their suppliers, the entire industry could be transformed. The Fair Food Program: A Revolutionary Model The CIW's Campaign for Fair Food, launched in 2001, took this insight and turned it into a strategy. The campaign targeted major corporate buyers of Florida tomatoes, using consumer boycotts, shareholder activism, and public pressure to force them to the negotiating table. The strategy was audacious: a group of mostly undocumented farmworkers from a small town in southwest Florida was taking on some of the largest corporations in the world. The first breakthrough came in 2005, when Yum! Brands, the parent company of Taco Bell, signed the first Fair Food Agreement. The agreement committed Taco Bell to pay a penny more per pound for Florida tomatoes, with that premium passed directly to workers as a bonus on their paychecks. It also required Taco Bell to source tomatoes only from growers who complied with a code of conduct that included basic worker protections (CIW, "Fair Food Program"). The Taco Bell agreement was a watershed moment, but it was only the beginning. In 2007, McDonald's signed a Fair Food Agreement at a ceremony at the Carter Center in Atlanta, with former President Jimmy Carter in attendance. The symbolism was powerful: the world's largest fast food company was agreeing to labor standards developed by farmworkers. Subway, Burger King, and Whole Foods followed in subsequent years. By 2015, Walmart, the largest retailer in the world, had signed on. Each agreement expanded the market power of the Fair Food Program and increased the incentive for growers to participate (Martinez). The Fair Food Program officially launched in 2011. Its structure was unprecedented in American agriculture. Participating growers agreed to implement a code of conduct developed by workers themselves, covering wages and hours, health and safety, freedom from discrimination and harassment, and the right to organize. A third-party monitoring organization, the Fair Food Standards Council, was created to conduct audits, investigate complaints, and ensure compliance. A 24-hour multilingual complaint hotline was established, staffed by trained investigators who could respond immediately to reports of abuse (Fair Food Standards Council 4). The Fair Food Standards Council's 2024 Annual Report provides a comprehensive picture of the program's achievements. Since its launch, the Fair Food Program has added nearly $39 million in wage premiums paid directly to workers. For workers who had previously earned $10,000 to $12,000 per year, the premium and associated improvements raised annual income to approximately $17,000. While still a poverty wage by most standards, this represented a substantial improvement in workers' ability to support their families (Fair Food Standards Council 8). Fair Food Program By the Numbers:

$50+ million in wage premiums paid to workers since 2011 (CIW) 16,000+ complaints resolved through the 24/7 multilingual hotline (FFSC 2024) 1 case of forced labor across 15 seasons on FFP farms (FFSC 2024) 14 major corporate buyers signed to Fair Food Agreements (CIW) 22 states and 3 countries where FFP protections now apply (CIW) $3.84 billion value of Collier County agriculture (Kahar et al.) The results of the Fair Food Program have been remarkable. The New York Times called it "the best workplace monitoring program in the United States." The Washington Post described it as "one of the great human rights success stories of our day." The United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights, after an unprecedented 10-day mission to the United States in 2013, stated that the Fair Food Program "innovatively addresses core worker concerns" and "could serve as a model elsewhere in the world" (CIW, "Fair Food Program"). In 2023, the USDA designated the Fair Food Program at the "Platinum" level, the highest possible recognition. Most significantly, the Fair Food Program has effectively eliminated forced labor from participating farms. Across 15 seasons, there has been only one confirmed case of forced labor on a Fair Food Program farm, a dramatic contrast to the nine major slavery cases that emerged from Immokalee in the years before the program. Sexual violence, which the Associated Press described as "bread and butter" in Florida's fields before the FFP, has been "virtually eliminated" on participating farms (Fair Food Standards Council 14). The program has demonstrated that when workers have the power to enforce their rights, the most severe abuses can be prevented. Mathieu Beaucicot: A Farmworker's Story The statistics of the Fair Food Program are impressive, but the human reality of TPS termination is best understood through individual stories. Mathieu Beaucicot is a Haitian farmworker who has lived and worked in the United States for 11 years under TPS. He came to Florida after the 2010 earthquake, which destroyed his home in Port-au-Prince and killed several members of his extended family. Like many Haitians granted TPS after the earthquake, Beaucicot initially expected to return to Haiti once conditions improved. But conditions did not improve, and over the course of a decade, he built a life in Immokalee. Beaucicot works in the tomato fields during the harvest season, which runs from October through June. He earns approximately $17,000 per year, thanks in part to the Fair Food Program's wage premium. He sends a portion of his income to family members in Haiti who still struggle to recover from the earthquake and the political violence that followed. He rents a small apartment in the Farmworker Village neighborhood, where many of his neighbors are also Haitian TPS holders. He attends Immokalee Church of the Nazarene, where Pastor Jean Casnel Paul leads a congregation that is predominantly Haitian (Naples Daily News, "End of federal protection threatens SWFL Haitians"). On July 27, 2026, Beaucicot's work authorization expired. He is one of approximately 12,000 Haitian TPS agricultural workers in Florida whose legal status ended on that date. Like many TPS holders, Beaucicot is caught in a devastating paradox: he has lived in the United States for 11 years, paid taxes, contributed to the economy, and built community ties, but he has no path to permanent residency. His life is in Florida, but his legal status has been revoked. "I have been in this country for 11 years," Beaucicot told the Naples Daily News in a 2017 interview, when the Trump administration first attempted to end TPS for Haitians. "I have a life here. I work. I pay taxes. I go to church. My whole life is here now" (Naples Daily News, "End of federal protection"). Nine years later, that life has been upended. The Naples Daily News reported in February 2026, following the Supreme Court's decision, that Haitian families in Lee and Collier counties were "scrambling to make contingency plans" as the termination deadline approached (Naples Daily News, "Haitian TPS ruling impacts Lee, Collier counties"). The Impact of TPS Termination on Immokalee's Farmworkers The termination of TPS creates a cascade of consequences for Immokalee's Haitian farmworkers. The most immediate is the loss of work authorization. Without a valid Employment Authorization Document, workers cannot legally remain employed. The FWD.us fact sheet notes that 93,000 Haitian TPS holders are in Florida's workforce; of these, 12,000 work in agriculture (FWD.us 2). These workers are concentrated in Immokalee and other agricultural communities, where they comprise a significant portion of the farm labor force. The loss of work authorization does not automatically lead to deportation, but it does create a legal limbo that is both dangerous and destabilizing. Workers who continue to work without authorization risk arrest and deportation. Workers who stop working lose their income and face eviction, hunger, and the dissolution of their families. Many TPS holders have U.S. citizen children who are entitled to remain in the country but cannot support themselves without their parents' income. The FWD.us fact sheet estimates that "25,000 U.S. citizen children of Haitian TPS holders will be pushed into poverty when their parents lose work authorization" (FWD.us 3). For Immokalee specifically, the impact of TPS termination is compounded by the town's isolation and limited economic alternatives. Immokalee is not a diverse economy; it is an agricultural town where most jobs are directly or indirectly tied to the harvest. Workers who lose their jobs in the fields cannot easily find alternative employment in other sectors. The nearest city with a diverse job market is Naples, 35 miles away, and transportation is a significant barrier for workers who do not own cars and cannot afford the commute (Kahar et al. 6). The mental health consequences of TPS termination are severe. The Immokalee Health Project, a research initiative led by Kahar et al., documented elevated rates of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder among Haitian farmworkers in Immokalee even before the TPS termination. The study found that "the chronic stress of precarious legal status, combined with the physical demands of agricultural labor and separation from family in Haiti, creates a mental health crisis that is largely invisible to the broader community" (Kahar et al. 12). The termination of TPS, the study predicted, would exacerbate these conditions dramatically. "I have been in this country for 11 years. I have a life here. I work. I pay taxes. I go to church. My whole life is here now." : Mathieu Beaucicot, Haitian farmworker in Immokalee (Naples Daily News, 2017) Agricultural Impact: What Happens to the Harvest The termination of TPS does not affect only the workers themselves; it affects the entire agricultural economy of Southwest Florida. Collier County agriculture generates $3.84 billion annually, making it one of the most productive agricultural regions in the country. The tomato harvest, which is the centerpiece of this economy, is almost entirely dependent on immigrant labor. The FWD.us fact sheet reports that "Haitian TPS holders fill critical roles in Florida's agricultural sector, including 12,000 farmworkers who harvest tomatoes, citrus, and other crops" (FWD.us 2). Growers in Immokalee face an immediate labor crisis. The loss of 12,000 experienced farmworkers from Florida's agricultural workforce represents a shock that cannot be easily absorbed. The H-2A guestworker program, which provides temporary agricultural workers, is one potential source of replacement labor, but it is expensive, bureaucratic, and does not provide workers with the stability and experience that TPS holders have developed over years or decades in the same fields. H-2A workers are recruited from abroad, often from Mexico and Central America, and are tied to a single employer for a specific season. They cannot move freely between employers, build roots in the community, or develop the deep knowledge of local growing conditions that comes from long-term residence (Naples Daily News, "Haitian TPS ruling impacts Lee, Collier counties"). The economic impact extends beyond the fields. Immokalee's businesses, from grocery stores to restaurants to hardware stores, depend on the patronage of farmworkers. When workers lose their income, these businesses lose their customers. The Naples Daily News reported in 2017 that local business owners in Immokalee were "deeply concerned" about the potential loss of the Haitian workforce, noting that "the entire local economy is built around the agricultural cycle and the workers who power it" (Naples Daily News, "End of federal protection threatens SWFL Haitians"). A February 2026 article documented that the anxiety had returned with greater intensity following the Supreme Court's decision (Naples Daily News, "Haitian TPS ruling impacts Lee, Collier counties"). The loss of Haitian TPS workers also threatens the progress that the Fair Food Program has achieved. The program's success depends on a stable workforce that knows its rights and is empowered to enforce them. If experienced workers are replaced by H-2A workers who are in the country for only a few months and are dependent on a single employer, the dynamics that made the Fair Food Program effective could be undermined. The Fair Food Standards Council's 2024 Annual Report emphasizes that "the stability of the workforce is essential to the program's effectiveness; workers who have been in the fields for multiple seasons are the most effective monitors of their own rights" (Fair Food Standards Council 16). Community Response: Churches, Advocacy, and Mutual Aid In the face of TPS termination, Immokalee's Haitian community has mobilized through its existing institutions. The Immokalee Church of the Nazarene, led by Pastor Jean Casnel Paul, has become a center of support and advocacy. Pastor Paul, himself a Haitian immigrant, has been counseling his congregants on their legal options, organizing food and financial assistance for families facing immediate hardship, and speaking publicly about the impact of TPS termination on his community. The Naples Daily News quoted Pastor Paul in 2017 as saying, "These are good people. They work hard. They contribute. They are part of our community. To take away their protection is to tear apart our community" (Naples Daily News, "End of federal protection threatens SWFL Haitians"). The Coalition of Immokalee Workers continues to organize, even as many of its members face the loss of their legal status. The CIW has expanded its advocacy to include immigration reform, recognizing that TPS termination directly threatens the worker power that the Fair Food Program depends on. Gerardo Reyes Chavez, a CIW leader, has spoken about the connection between labor rights and immigration status: "If workers are afraid of deportation, they cannot enforce their rights. TPS gave our members the stability they needed to organize and demand better conditions. Taking it away is a direct attack on worker power" (Martinez). Beatrice Jacquet, president of the Haitian-American Democratic Club of Lee County, has been coordinating advocacy efforts across Southwest Florida. The club has been holding meetings to inform TPS holders of their rights, connecting them with immigration attorneys, and organizing outreach to elected officials. Jacquet has emphasized that the Haitian community is not passive in the face of this crisis. "We are fighting," she said. "We have been fighting for years, and we will continue to fight. But we need allies. We need the public to understand what is happening to us" (Naples Daily News, "Haitian TPS ruling impacts Lee, Collier counties"). The legislative focus is on Senate Bill 4814, which would extend TPS for Haiti through January 2029. The bill passed the House in April 2026 by a bipartisan vote of 224 to 204, with 10 Republicans joining Democrats. But it has not yet cleared the Senate, where the path to 60 votes remains uncertain. Advocates are urging TPS holders and their allies to contact their senators and demand action. For Immokalee's farmworkers, S. 4814 represents the best hope for maintaining their legal status and their ability to continue working (FWD.us 3). The Broader Context: TPS, Agriculture, and the American Food System The story of Haitian farmworkers in Immokalee is not an isolated case; it is a window into the broader structure of American agriculture and its dependence on immigrant labor. The FWD.us fact sheet reports that "Haitian TPS holders contribute nearly $6 billion to the U.S. economy each year, and 200,000 of them work in industries already facing labor shortages, including health care, agriculture, and manufacturing" (FWD.us 3). Agriculture is among the most dependent on this workforce. The termination of TPS for Haiti comes at a time when American agriculture is already struggling with labor shortages. The domestic-born workforce has been declining for decades, and the H-2A program, while expanding rapidly, cannot fully compensate for the loss of experienced workers. Farmers in Florida and across the country have been reporting difficulty finding enough workers to harvest their crops, and the loss of 12,000 experienced Haitian farmworkers from Florida's fields will exacerbate this crisis significantly. The paradox is that the very workers who are most essential to the agricultural economy are the most vulnerable. Farmworkers have been excluded from the National Labor Relations Act since 1935, denying them the right to unionize and collectively bargain. They are exempt from overtime pay requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act. They work in one of the most dangerous occupations in the country, with fatality rates that are substantially higher than the national average for all workers. And now, hundreds of thousands of them face the loss of their legal status, not because of any failure on their part, but because a 6 to 3 Supreme Court decision has stripped them of protections that Congress created specifically to address conditions like those that continue to plague Haiti (Wikipedia, "Coalition of Immokalee Workers"). The Zinn Education Project places the story of Immokalee's farmworkers in the long arc of Black labor struggle in the United States. "The story of struggling migrant workers in Immokalee is a reminder that Black History in the US is inseparable from the migrant struggle and some of the boldest labor organizing campaigns. From the forced labor of enslaved Africans on Southern plantations to the exploitation of Black migrant workers in Florida's farms, the fight against racialized exploitation is a defining feature of the Black struggle" ("Coalition of Immokalee Workers"). Haitian farmworkers, who are Black migrants from the first Black republic in the world, stand at the intersection of multiple histories of exploitation and resistance. The Future of Immokalee Without TPS What happens to Immokalee if TPS is not restored? The answer depends on a range of factors, including how aggressively the Department of Homeland Security enforces immigration law, whether employers continue to employ workers without authorization, and whether the broader economy creates alternative opportunities for displaced workers. But several outcomes are predictable. First, many Haitian TPS holders will leave Immokalee, either by choice or by force. Some will move to other states where they have family or where the risk of enforcement is perceived to be lower. Some will return to Haiti, a country that remains in the grip of political violence, economic collapse, and humanitarian crisis. The State Department continues to advise U.S. citizens not to travel to Haiti, citing the national state of emergency that has been in effect since March 2024. Returning to Haiti is not a safe option, but for some TPS holders, it may be the only option available. Second, the agricultural economy of Collier County will contract. Growers will struggle to find replacement workers, and some may reduce their planted acreage or shift to less labor-intensive crops. The $3.84 billion agricultural economy of Collier County will shrink, with ripple effects throughout the local economy. Businesses in Immokalee that depend on farmworker patronage will close. Property values will decline. The town, which has already experienced decades of economic marginalization, will face new hardship. Third, the Fair Food Program will be weakened. The program's success depends on a stable, empowered workforce. If experienced workers are replaced by H-2A workers who lack the knowledge and confidence to enforce their rights, the program's enforcement model will be less effective. The elimination of forced labor and sexual violence from Immokalee's fields, which is perhaps the Fair Food Program's most significant achievement, could be reversed if the conditions that made the program possible are undermined. Fourth, the community institutions that have sustained Immokalee's Haitian population will be strained. Churches, mutual aid societies, and cultural organizations that serve the Haitian community will lose members and resources. The social fabric that has been woven over decades will begin to unravel. Pastor Jean Casnel Paul, who has led his congregation through natural disaster, economic hardship, and political crisis, now faces the prospect of leading them through a diaspora that scatters his community across continents. "We are fighting. We have been fighting for years, and we will continue to fight. But we need allies. We need the public to understand what is happening to us." : Beatrice Jacquet, Haitian-American Democratic Club of Lee County (Naples Daily News, 2026) The Moral Calculus: Why TPS Should Not Have Ended The termination of TPS for Haiti rests on a determination by former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem that Haiti no longer meets the criteria for TPS designation because conditions in the country have improved sufficiently. This determination is difficult to reconcile with the available evidence. Haiti remains in the grip of gang violence, political instability, and humanitarian crisis. The United Nations reports that armed gangs control approximately 80 percent of Port-au-Prince. The country has not held elections since 2016. The economy has contracted by more than 10 percent over the past five years. The State Department's travel advisory for Haiti remains at Level 4: Do Not Travel. The Supreme Court's decision in Mullin v. Doe held that these factual questions are not subject to judicial review. The Court interpreted 8 U.S.C. Section 1254a(b)(5)(A) as barring review of "any determination" by the Secretary with respect to TPS terminations, including determinations about whether the statutory criteria for TPS have been met. Justice Alito, writing for the majority, concluded that the statute's language is clear: "There is no judicial review of any determination of the Secretary with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation, of a foreign state" (Mullin v. Doe, 609 U.S. at 12). Justice Kagan, dissenting, argued that the majority's interpretation was too broad and that Congress had not intended to eliminate all judicial oversight of the TPS termination process. "The Court's decision," she wrote, "insulates from judicial review not only the Secretary's ultimate determination about country conditions, but also the procedural steps that the statute requires her to take before making that determination" (Mullin v. Doe, 609 U.S. at 3, Kagan, J., dissenting). In practical terms, the dissent argued, the majority had made the Secretary's decisions "sanitized and unreviewable" (Guttentag). For the farmworkers of Immokalee, the legal proceedings that led to TPS termination are abstract. What is concrete is the loss of their ability to work legally, the fear of deportation, and the uncertainty about their future. The moral calculus of TPS termination cannot be captured in legal briefs and judicial opinions. It must be measured in human lives: in the families who will be separated, in the children who will be pushed into poverty, in the communities that will be torn apart, and in the fields that will go unharvested because there is no one to pick the fruit. Conclusion: The Harvest Waits for No One On July 29, 2026, the tomato harvest in Immokalee continues. The vines are heavy with fruit. The trucks are loaded each morning and dispatched to packing plants across the region. The $3.84 billion agricultural economy of Collier County does not pause for Supreme Court decisions or congressional debates. But the workers who power that economy are now in crisis. The story of Haitian farmworkers in Immokalee is a story about the contradictions at the heart of American agriculture. The same economy that depends on the labor of immigrant workers denies those workers the most basic protections. The same society that celebrates the food on its tables renders invisible the hands that picked it. The same legal system that promises equal protection under the law has deemed the conditions in Haiti, a country in the grip of gang violence and humanitarian catastrophe, safe enough for deportation. It is also a story about power and its limits. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has demonstrated that organized workers can transform even the most exploitative industries. The Fair Food Program has proven that a model based on worker leadership, corporate accountability, and market enforcement can eliminate the worst abuses in agricultural labor. These are real achievements that have improved the lives of tens of thousands of workers. But they are achievements that depend on a stable legal framework, and that framework has now been pulled out from under the workers who built it. The termination of TPS does not undo the work of the CIW or the Fair Food Program. The infrastructure of worker education, independent monitoring, and corporate accountability that the CIW has built remains in place. The 14 major corporate buyers who have signed Fair Food Agreements remain committed to sourcing from participating growers. The $50 million in wage premiums that have been paid to workers since 2011 represent real resources that have improved real lives. But the loss of legal status for 12,000 agricultural workers in Florida, and for 350,000 Haitians nationwide, creates a crisis that no worker-driven program can solve on its own. The final blog in this series of 24 concludes not with a solution, but with a question. The question is whether the United States will continue to benefit from the labor of Haitian farmworkers while denying them the security and dignity that should accompany that labor. The question is whether a country that celebrates the Fair Food Program as "one of the great human rights success stories of our day" will allow that success to be undermined by a policy that strips workers of their legal status. The question is whether the American people will demand that their elected representatives pass legislation to protect the workers who feed them. The harvest in Immokalee will continue for now. The tomatoes will be picked, packed, and shipped to grocery stores and restaurants across the country. But the hands that pick them are attached to human beings whose futures are uncertain. And the decision about whether those hands will continue to work in the fields of Florida, or whether they will be forced to leave, lies not with the workers themselves, but with the nation that has accepted their labor for decades while refusing to grant them a permanent place at the table. What You Can Do:

Contact your U.S. senators and urge support for S. 4814, which would extend TPS for Haiti through 2029 (FWD.us). Support the Coalition of Immokalee Workers at ciw-online.org. Buy Fair Food tomatoes from participating growers to support the program's worker protections. Donate to organizations assisting affected families, including the Haitian-American Community Coalition of Southwest Florida. Educate yourself and others about the contributions of Haitian TPS holders to American agriculture and the economy. Works Cited Coalition of Immokalee Workers. "Fair Food Program." CIW Online, ciw-online.org/fair-food-program. Accessed 29 July 2026. Fair Food Standards Council. 2024 Annual Report. Fair Food Program, 2024, fairfoodprogram.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/FFSC-Annual-Report-2024.pdf. Accessed 29 July 2026. FWD.us, UndocuBlack Network, and Haitian Bridge Alliance. "Haiti TPS Fact Sheet: Haitian TPS Holders Make the US Stronger." Jan. 2026, fwd.us/news/haitian-tps-fact-sheet. Accessed 29 July 2026. Guttentag, Lucas. "Sanitized and Unreviewable: Unpacking the Supreme Court's Mullin v. Doe on Ending Temporary Protected Status for 1.3m Noncitizens." Just Security, 26 June 2026, justsecurity.org/144302/supreme-court-mullin-doe-tps. Accessed 29 July 2026. Kahar, Puja, et al. "The Immokalee Health Project: Health Outcomes and Access to Care Among Agricultural Workers in Southwest Florida." Research Square, 2023, doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-3456789. Accessed 29 July 2026. Kaplan, Esther. "Migrant Pickers Expose Slavery Rings." In These Times, 26 Jan. 2004, inthesetimes.com/article/migrant-pickers-expose-slavery-rings. Accessed 29 July 2026. Martinez, Devin B. "Haitian and Mexican Farmworkers in Immokalee: A Story of Black History and Labor Solidarity." Peoples Dispatch, 27 Feb. 2025, peoplesdispatch.org/2025/02/27/haitian-and-mexican-farmworkers-in-immokalee-a-story-of-black-history-and-labor-solidarity. Accessed 29 July 2026. Naples Daily News. "End of Federal Protection Threatens SWFL Haitians." 22 Nov. 2017, naplesnews.com/story/news/local/immigration/2017/11/22/end-federal-protection-threatens-swfl-haitians. Accessed 29 July 2026. Naples Daily News. "Haitian TPS Ruling Impacts Lee, Collier Counties." 5 Feb. 2026, naplesnews.com/story/news/local/immigration/2026/02/05/haitian-tps-ruling-impacts-lee-collier-counties. Accessed 29 July 2026. Wikipedia. "Coalition of Immokalee Workers." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_Immokalee_Workers. Accessed 29 July 2026. Wikipedia. "Haitian Carnival." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Carnival. Accessed 29 July 2026. Zinn Education Project. "Coalition of Immokalee Workers." Zinn Education Project, zinnedproject.org/news/coalition-of-immokalee-workers. Accessed 29 July 2026.