Hundreds of thousands of Haitians face the prospect of having to leave the United States on their own or being deported, with the revocation on Monday evening, July 27, of a temporary protected status which had allowed them since 2010 to live and work legally in the country.
“You can’t move. You are like a prisoner, even though you have done nothing wrong,” a Haitian worker in the health sector, who has benefited from this status called TPS for many years, told AFP. The person she cares for, she adds, risks being “heartbroken.”
TPS protects its beneficiaries from deportation and gives them the right to work, but it does not provide access to permanent residency or American citizenship. It is granted provisionally to immigrants whose security is threatened in their country due to conflicts, natural disasters or other “extraordinary” conditions.
Last month, the Supreme Court, with a conservative majority, authorized the Trump administration, which is pursuing a policy of mass expulsions of immigrants, to deprive the approximately 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians benefiting from it. And on Wednesday, in Congress, a Republican senator blocked an attempt by Democrats to extend temporary protection for Haitian nationals.
About 200,000 workers in the United States
According to several immigrant defense organizations, Haitian TPS beneficiaries represent approximately 200,000 workers in the United States, particularly in the healthcare, construction, transportation and catering sectors, who are worried about the consequences of the revocation of this status.
According to Nancy Hagans, president of a New York State nurses union (the New York State Nurses Association, or NYSNA), several thousand of its members will no longer be able to legally work from midnight. With the prospect of detention by the federal immigration services and then expulsion, her organization advises them to “put their papers in order” and, “if they have money in the bank, to withdraw it”, she tells AFP.
“Some own their homes. They have been here for 26, 27 years, they have built a life here,” recalls Nancy Hagans. “What the government has just done is withdraw resources not only from hospitals, retirement homes and the most disadvantaged communities, but also deprive our communities of an important source of economic activity,” she denounces.
Migrants from around fifteen countries concerned
For Lyne Lucien, a Haitian-American artist based in New York, “one of the most difficult things about this decision is the uncertainty it creates.” Members of the Haitian diaspora “are concerned about families being separated” and “wonder whether returning to Haiti is safe or realistic given current conditions,” she said.
The poorest country in the Americas has suffered for decades from natural disasters, such as the 2010 earthquake, political instability and corruption. The state has not had elections since 2016 and its last president, assassinated in 2021, has not been replaced. Since the start of 2024, Haiti has also suffered a wave of violence perpetrated by gangs who control almost the entire capital Port-au-Prince and the main roads.
Since Donald Trump’s return to the presidency in 2025, his administration has revoked TPS for migrants from around 15 countries, including Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras and Somalia, raising the specter of deportation for more than a million immigrants. Some of these decisions are still the subject of legal disputes.
With AFP
