Haitian migrants get off a plane after U .S. authorities flew them out of a Texas border city where thousands of mostly Haitians had gathered under a bridge after crossing the Rio Grande river from Mexico September 19, 2021.
Ralph Tedy Erol | Reuters
The Trump administration on Thursday canceled an extension of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, the latest move by the president targeting the form of immigration relief for people coming from countries facing political upheaval and natural disasters.
In June, amid the island’s violent domestic turmoil, the Biden administration announced the temporary immigration protection was extended for Haitians until February 2026.
The Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday that it was vacating the extension and the protections would end on Aug. 3.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described the decision by the former administration as an attempt to “tie the hands” of President Donald Trump.
“President Trump and I are returning TPS to its original status: temporary,” Noem said in the statement.
Biden extended TPS in June for Haitians who arrived in the U.S. on or before June 3, 2024, to provide humanitarian relief. The small island nation descended into widespread gang violence last year, forcing the former Haitian president to flee the country and resign.
The U.S. previously designated the status for Haitians who arrived in the country before the 2010 earthquake and renewed it as recently as 2022 prior to Biden’s decision.
The DHS said in its statement that by July 2024, an estimated 520,694 Haitians were eligible to register for TPS.
TPS is granted to immigrants in the U.S. who can’t return to their countries because of natural disasters or political upheaval. It does not provide a path to citizenship.
“The Trump administration is ripping stability away from half a million Haitians who have built their lives here — children, workers, parents, and neighbors who have become integral to American communities and contributed to our economy,” Beatriz Lopez, co-executive director of the Immigration Hub, an immigrant advocacy organization, said in a statement. “Deporting people to a country plagued by violence and political turmoil is unconscionable, and stripping them of legal status will only force working families into the shadows, inflicting fear in children and their loved ones and leaving industries like healthcare, construction, and hospitality scrambling for workers.”
“Once again, Trump’s agenda isn’t about security—it’s about cruelty and chaos,” Lopez said.
Haitians who were in the U.S. legally under temporary programs previously told NBC News they lived with anxiety knowing the Trump administration could end the temporary forms of relief from deportation.
At least 5,600 people were killed in gang violence in Haiti in 2024, according to the United Nations. More than 200 people were executed in December in the Cité Soleil commune of Haiti’s capital, the U.N. said.
A report from the U.N. Integrated Office in Haiti said that people were tracked down and taken to a gang stronghold, where they were either shot or killed with machetes. Most victims were elderly and targeted under accusations of “practicing voodoo and causing the gang leader’s child’s illness,” the U.N. said.
