The Department of Homeland Security announced this week that the Temporary Protected Status for Haitians in America will expire six months earlier on Aug. 3.

The announcement has communities and families on edge, and New York lawmakers sounding off.

“They are now trying to create pathways to deport people who are actually in this country legally,” Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said in a rally outside City Hall.

What You Need To Know

  • The Department of Homeland Security announced this week that the Temporary Protected Status for Haitians in America will expire six months earlier on Aug. 3

  • The announcement has communities and families on edge, and New York lawmakers sounding off

  • More than half a million Haitians living in the U.S. may soon be at risk of deportation

  • Temporary Protected Status was designed to allow people to live lawfully in the U.S. while their home country experiences armed conflict or natural disaster.

“This decision ignores the dire reality in Haiti and threatens to upheave the lives of families that have built their lives right here in the United States,” Councilmember Farah Louis said in a rally outside of City Hall.

More than half a million Haitians living in the U.S. may soon be at risk of deportation after the Trump administration announced temporary protected status for Haitian migrants will come to an end in August.

“People are not even going to restaurants in fear that they can get deported,” John Jean-Pierre, a Haitian New Yorker, said.

Jean-Pierre moved to New York after Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake. Today several of his relatives live, work and pay taxes in the U.S. — thanks to their temporary protected status. They all believe returning to Haiti is not an option.

“It’s violence in Haiti,” he said.

In 2021, Haiti’s president was assassinated. Today, the capital city is largely controlled by gangs. United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator Ulrika Richardson calls Haiti’s conditions an “unprecedented crisis.”

“I would say it is really heartbreaking to see, to witness, to listen to victims of violence,” Richardson added.

Haitian communities across the country are bracing for potential deportations, like in Springfield, Ohio — where President Donald Trump falsely claimed that Haitians in the city were eating their neighbor’s pets.

In October, President Trump was asked about his plans for TPS and Haiti, as president.

“Absolutely, I’d revoke it,” President Trump said last year.

Temporary Protected Status was designed to allow people to live lawfully in the U.S. while their home country experiences armed conflict or natural disaster.

In announcing the end of TPS for Haiti, the Department of Homeland Security said the system had been abused and exploited for decades.