The Trump administration announced Thursday it has rolled back protections for roughly 500,000 Haitian migrants, hastening the end of their Temporary Protected Status by six months.
The decision, signed this week by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, ends the protected status and work permits for the migrants in August, a move that could target them for deportation, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said.
The Haitians are in the U.S. under a Biden administration-era program called humanitarian parole, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The Biden administration in its waning days extended TPS for Haitians by 18 months — the max extension allowed — through February 2026. DHS' action Thursday supersedes the Biden extension.
The Journal reported that the DHS is reevaluating the need to continue humanitarian parole past August, given the ongoing crisis in Haiti.
Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., last week called on the Trump administration to renew TPS for Haitians, nearly 12,000 of whom live in his congressional district, New York's 17th. Lawler told Voice of America Creole that conditions in Haiti continue to deteriorate under gang violence.
Trump vowed during his campaign to end TPS for Haitians in the midst of the turmoil in Springfield, Ohio, in which he claimed the city was "overrun" by the approximately 30,000 Haitians who lived there.
"Springfield is such a beautiful place. Have you seen what's happened to it? It's been overrun. You can't do that to people. I'd revoke [the protected status], and I'd bring [the migrants] back to their country," he told NewsNation in early October.
Congress created TPS in 1990 to protect illegal immigrants from being deported to countries in civil strife. The Trump administration has maintained that it's being abused as a pathway to stay in the U.S. indefinitely. Some Haitians have been in the U.S. under the protected status since the Obama administration in 2010, according to The New York Times.
The Trump administration announced last month that TPS for roughly 600,000 Venezuelans will end in April.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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