The Trump administration Friday nixed deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians currently living in the United States, concluding that the island country is safe enough for them to return.
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Haiti will officially expire on Aug. 3 and the termination will take effect on Sep. 2, requiring more than half a million Haitians currently enjoying this deportation relief to either obtain a new status or leave the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced in a press release. The termination follows high levels of Haitian immigration that occurred under the Biden administration, which had previously extended TPS to the country.
“This decision restores integrity in our immigration system and ensures that Temporary Protective Status is actually temporary,” a spokesperson for DHS said in a public statement. “The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home.”
“We encourage these individuals to take advantage of the Department’s resources in returning to Haiti, which can be arranged through the CBP Home app,” the spokesperson continued. “Haitian nationals may pursue lawful status through other immigration benefit requests, if eligible.”
Created in 1990, TPS is a federal authority that provides sweeping deportation protections and work eligibility to certain foreign nationals living in the U.S., including illegal migrants, whose home countries are experiencing conflict or devastating natural disasters, making it potentially unsafe for them to return, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Critics of TPS and similar deportation protection designations, such as Deferred Enforced Departure, have long criticized the maneuvers as soft amnesty programs that are repeatedly abused and extended.
Haiti itself has been designated for TPS since 2010, and with each extension over the years, more and more Haitian nationals have qualified for deportation relief. DHS estimated that roughly 57,000 Haitians were eligible for TPS in May of 2011. That number climbed to 155,000 in August 2021, and by July 2024 it had catapulted to 520,694, according to the federal government.
The Biden administration announced it was extending TPS for Haiti again in June 2024, claiming ongoing political upheaval in the island country. However, Trump’s DHS immediately rescinded this extension in February, saying the extension was “far longer than justified.”
“After conferring with interagency partners, Secretary Noem determined that conditions in Haiti no longer meet the TPS statutory requirements,” the DHS announcement Friday stated.
“The Secretary determined that, overall, country conditions have improved to the point where Haitians can return home in safety,” the statement continued. “She further determined that permitting Haitian nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to the national interest of the United States.”
The administration is encouraging Haitian nationals to use the CBP Home app to announce their departure from the U.S. An app once used by the Biden administration to process asylum applications en masse, the Trump administration rejiggered the app to instead allow illegal migrants and other foreign nationals to formally declare their intention to the leave.
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