Over the weekend, I saw a viral video that broke my heart. A Haitian immigrant named Monsanto Maler collapsed to the ground outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in Blue Ash, Ohio, after being fitted with an electronic ankle monitor. He cried out in pain and despair.
As a Haitian American, I felt every tear that this man shed. Watching him fall to his knees was a reminder that immigration policy is not an abstract debate, but affects real people.
The previous Trump administration ended temporary protected status (TPS) for roughly 350,000 migrants from Haiti, meaning people like Maler lost the right to work in the US and are at risk of arrest and deportation to a country the US designates as dangerous. Haitian immigrants are now required to attend mandatory check‑ins, where they are fitted with ankle monitors.
The current administration has now ended TPS for 13 countries, affecting one million of 1.3 million people who had it in 2025, creating enormous instability for families who had built lives in the United States.
I spent years standing at the podium in the White House briefing room as press secretary under president Joe Biden, representing an administration that understood a basic truth: America relies on immigrant labour. That was the reality that shaped our decisions every day.
We worked to restore TPS and expand humanitarian pathways, but we also inherited a system that had pushed thousands of immigrants into crisis. I know this well because I had to speak about these policies from the podium when they were reinstated. I carried the responsibility for explaining how we were trying to repair a system designed to intimidate.
For the past couple of years, Karoline Leavitt has stood at the podium where I used to stand and defended the Trump administration’s mass deportations, violence at the border and aggressive enforcement, even when one of her own relatives was detained by ICE. The White House announced this week that she is leaving her post as press secretary, which raises an important question about what comes next.
Her tenure has been defined by an unwavering commitment to policies that treat migrants as threats rather than people who contribute to society. No matter who replaces her, in an administration that has embraced punitive enforcement as its core immigration strategy, the tone has already been set by the President.
Haitians and other immigrants work in healthcare, caregiving, agriculture and hospitality. They support families and communities. They are essential to the functioning of the American economy. None of this means that Americans who are not immigrants do not work hard or face real challenges. I have met families across the country who struggle to make ends meet, work multiple jobs and make sacrifices for their children. Immigration policy must respect their reality, too. But that does not require denying another one.
Britain is now walking toward the same destructive path. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and the Conservative Party are proposing immigration restrictions that would sharply limit the workers who keep the United Kingdom running. Their plans would make it harder for care workers, agricultural labourers and other essential staff to enter the country. Their promised crackdown on small boat arrivals mirrors the punitive tactics used at the US border.
The UK Government has already raised salary thresholds, tightened visa rules and made it more difficult for families to reunite. Britain is adopting the same posture as the US, embracing rhetoric and enforcement strategies that create fear.
The US is grappling with the consequences of years of deterrence‑based policies, despite an expansion of humanitarian pathways and acknowledgment of the economic need for immigrant workers during the Biden era.
Without immigrants, our economies suffer. The US has seen restaurant worker shortages, nursing homes and long‑term care facilities struggling to hire enough staff and farms unable to find the labourers they need. In the UK, migrants are crucial to the hospitality, administrative services, health and care sectors, and are more likely to work night shifts.
Just as in the United States, this does not mean British workers are not struggling. Many are working long hours, caring for family members and trying to build a stable life in an unstable economy. But restricting immigration will not make their lives easier. It will mean longer hospital waits, fewer carers, higher food prices and businesses that cannot stay open because they cannot find staff.
Policies built on punishment do not fix labour shortages, strengthen communities or make countries safer. They create instability and systems that fail the very people politicians claim to be protecting.
Having seen the consequences of harmful immigration policy up close, I can tell you that Britain is headed toward the same outcome if these proposals are implemented. Immigration policy can be firm and fair. It can protect workers and support integration. But it cannot be built on denial.
The question is whether Britain will learn from America’s experience or repeat it.