Trump administration shortens deportation protection duration for 521,000 Haitians

(Patria) - U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has shortened the duration of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and work permits for 521,000 Haitians covered by the temporary program, so that they will expire in August, a Homeland Security Department spokesperson said, Reuters reported.
The decision reverses last year's move by the Biden administration to extend protection until February 2026, the spokesperson said, adding that the extension was unjustified.

President Donald Trump tried to halt most enrollments in the temporary protected status program during his presidency from 2017 to 2021, but was blocked by federal courts.

Noem has already revoked the Biden-era TPS extension for about 600,000 Venezuelans and canceled the status for about half of them, whose protection and access to work permits expire in April.

Trump falsely claimed during a debate in September 2024 with Democrat Kamala Harris that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating pets, sparking fear of retaliation against Haitians in the city. Trump said a month later that if elected, he would revoke TPS for Haitians and deport them.

Noem will now have to decide whether to revoke the status of Haitians.

"President Trump and I are returning TPS to its original status: temporary," she said in a statement.

TPS is available to people whose home country has experienced a natural disaster, armed conflict, or other extraordinary event.

More than a million people, over half of them children, are displaced in Haiti, where gang violence continues despite the start of a United Nations-backed security mission last year, according to data from the organization from January. Haiti has had no elected government since 2023, and elections have not been held since 2016. The country's capital is almost entirely controlled by armed gangs, and leaders have said security must first be established to hold a free and fair vote.

A pair of lawsuits filed this week have challenged the Trump administration's moves to revoke TPS for Venezuelans.