The Trump Administration Is Trying to End TPS Status for Haitians

The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday announced that it plans to stop granting Temporary Protected Status to Haitians, saying their continued protection would be “contrary to the national interest of the United States.”

The Trump administration plans to implement the new policy after Feb. 3, though past efforts by the administration to do so have failed in court.

“Based on the Department’s review, the Secretary has determined that there are no

extraordinary and temporary conditions in Haiti that prevent Haitian nationals – from returning in safety,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem wrote in a 22-page notice to the Federal Register.

“Moreover, even if the Department found that there existed conditions that were extraordinary and temporary that prevented … returning in safety, termination of Temporary Protected Status of Haiti is still required because it is contrary to the national interest of the United States to permit Haitian nationals — to remain temporarily in the United States,” the notice continued.

Haitians were first granted TPS — a DHS designation for foreign nationals who cannot safely return to their home countries due to extenuating circumstances including natural disasters, political violence and fear of persecution — in 2010 after the country’s devastating earthquake. The status has since been extended nearly a dozen times.

The U.S. extended Haiti’s TPS designation as recovery from the natural disaster was compounded by political turbulence. In 2021, political tensions on the island nation exploded as a coalition of gangs overpowered much of the local government — concluding in the assassination of Haiti’s then-President Jovenel Moïse.

As of March, there are more than 330,000 Haitians living under TPS in the U.S., thousands of whom have children that are U.S. citizens, according to Census data.

Advocates and Democratic members of the House Haiti Caucus have raised concerns of Haitians losing TPS since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second administration, NOTUS previously reported.

“Taking their legal status is just part and parcel of what I believe is a racist attack on people of African descent and will certainly fit in with his xenophobic policies around immigration,” the caucus’ co-chair, Rep. Yvette Clarke, told NOTUS in February.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has ended TPS for millions of migrants seeking refuge in the U.S. including those from Syria, Nicaragua, Honduras, Nepal, Cameroon, Afghanistan and Venezuela.

On Friday, Trump said he would immediately end protected status for Somali immigrants living in Minnesota, and on Tuesday he announced the end of TPS designations for the nearly 4,000 people from Myanmar.

The runway to February is meant to comply with a federal judge’s ruling in July that prohibited any terminations of Haiti’s TPS status from taking effect before Feb. 3, which Noem pointed to in Wednesday’s notice.

DHS had previously taken issue with that ruling.

“The Department of Homeland Security vehemently disagrees with this ruling and is working to determine next steps,” states a notice on the DHS webpage for Haiti’s protected status.