The Trump administration's move to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians has triggered widespread fear among Haitian communities in Florida of family separation, job loss, and deportation to a country engulfed by violence and a humanitarian crisis, Human Rights Watch and Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center said today. The US Supreme Court's June 25, 2026, decision allowing the termination to move forward has made those concerns immediate and sharp, leaving hundreds of thousands of Haitians at risk of losing protection.
TPS is a mechanism under US law that allows the executive branch to grant people of designated nationalities who are already in the United States the right to live and work in the country for a finite period, because conditions in their home countries are too dangerous to return people to. The Trump administration had moved to terminate TPS for Haitians, arguing that country conditions have improved and that the country's "breakdown in governance" makes Haiti unable to control migration. A federal district court had temporarily blocked the termination on February 3, 2026. The Supreme Court reversed that order, allowing the termination decision to take effect while litigation continues.
"Without TPS protections, Haitians risk being sent back to one of the world's most devastating human rights crises," said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "Congress should act swiftly to preserve TPS protections for Haitians and prevent that from happening."
Some members of Congress have scrambled to address this looming crisis. On April 16, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would designate Haitians for TPS until April 2029, but it has not passed the Senate. On June 19, a group of senators introduced companion legislation that would require the secretary of homeland security to designate Haitians for TPS and preserve protections for Haitians in the United States. On June 25, Florida Congresswoman Frederica Wilson introduced legislation to protect Haitians in the United States from deportation and provide long-settled Haitian families a path to permanent residency. Congress has not passed any of these bills, and the administration's TPS termination is set to go into effect. In addition, on June 26, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced plans to introduce the TPS Review Act, which would allow for judicial and congressional review of TPS terminations.
In partnership with Sant La, Human Rights Watch interviewed 40 Haitian TPS holders in Miami, Florida, and 15 representatives of community organizations. Researchers also reviewed information from the US government and other Haitian and international organizations.
Haitian TPS holders said that, if returned to Haiti, criminal groups would target them for kidnapping and extortion on the assumption that they have money after having lived in the United States.
"Losing TPS would be like a death sentence," said a 28-year-old Haitian man. "If they deport me to Haiti, people will think I have money because I lived abroad. They will try to extort or kidnap me. And because I have no money or savings to pay, they will kill me."
Those fears are grounded in Haiti's spiraling security, human rights, and humanitarian crises. Criminal groups control approximately 90 percent of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, and have expanded into new regions. Over 8,200 people were killed between January 2025 and March 2026, and in at least 20 incidents criminal groups killed three or more people. Sexual violence is widespread, and child recruitment by criminal groups is on the rise. Nearly 1.5 million people are internally displaced, almost half of them children, and 5.83 million people, 52 percent of the population, face acute food insecurity, the highest level ever recorded in Haiti.
"Three years ago, members of criminal groups entered my home in Delmas and stole everything we had," said a 28-year-old certified nursing assistant from Port-au-Prince. "They killed my father and raped my sister and me. My sister took her own life days later; she could not bear what had happened to us. I found the strength to keep going, and when I had the opportunity to come to the United States with the help of a relative, I did not hesitate. It was the only way to survive."
Approximately 330,000 Haitians had TPS in the United States before the Trump administration moved to terminate the designation, including an estimated 158,000 in Florida, the largest Haitian immigrant population nationwide. Many work in health care, elder care, construction, tourism, and hospitality. According to FWD.us, a bipartisan political advocacy organization focused on immigration, TPS holders in Florida contributed approximately US$2.6 billion annually to the state economy, including about $1.5 billion in the Miami metropolitan area alone.
Human Rights Watch found that Haitian families in Florida were already suffering serious economic and social consequences even before the Supreme Court decision. In the preceding months, TPS holders said, expired work permit cards, delayed renewals, and employers' confusion about their legal status had cost some people their jobs, reduced others' income, and left families struggling to pay rent, buy food, access health care, and support relatives in Haiti. Some parents had stopped sending children to school or avoided medical appointments because they feared contact with authorities.
Sant La staff and representatives of other organizations interviewed said the expiration of TPS and related work authorization will have immediate consequences. Thamara Labrousse, executive director of Sant La, said many families live paycheck to paycheck and would feel the economic impact immediately. "Without the ability to work, people will struggle to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads. Some may end up homeless, creating a humanitarian crisis for Haitians in the United States."
A 25-year-old Haitian woman who worked as a caregiver for an older man said that she lost her job in February, after her employer concluded that her TPS had ended, despite her efforts to explain the legal uncertainty, "After they fired me, everything got worse," she said. "I was only able to find a few hours of work at a hair salon, and I am staying at a neighbor's house because I don't have enough money to pay rent. It will get even worse if they take away my work permit, because then no one will hire me. I don't know how I will survive."
The Senate should expeditiously pass legislation approved by the House of Representatives, that would preserve TPS protection for Haitians through April 2029, Human Rights Watch and Sant La said. As part of broader immigration reform, Congress should also consider providing a path to lawful permanent residence or other forms of durable protection for immigrants with long-term ties to the United States, including many Haitian TPS holders.
Not only have conditions in Haiti not improved, but the situation has deteriorated significantly since the designation was first issued in 2010. Under international human rights law, governments should not return people to places where they face serious risks to their lives, freedom, or physical integrity. This principle, known as non-refoulement, flows from several international treaties, including the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 protocol, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Deporting Haitians to Haiti would mean returning them to one of the world's most severe human rights and humanitarian crises. Since 2022, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights have repeatedly called on countries not to forcibly return Haitians, citing life-threatening security and health risks, widespread abuses, and the lack of conditions for safe, dignified, and sustainable returns.
"The consequences of the Trump administration's actions will be felt not only by Haitian TPS holders, but also by the workplaces, schools, and communities that depend on them," Labrousse said. "Haitian TPS holders have built their lives in this country and are an integral part of the social and economic fabric of communities across Florida and the nation."
For additional accounts and details, please see below.
Why Haitians Fled and Cannot Return
For several years, Haiti has faced overlapping political, security, economic, and humanitarian crises that have steadily eroded the country's capacity to protect the population and ensure access to essential services. The 2010 earthquake, cholera epidemic, devastating hurricanes, chronic political instability, and the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse have all contributed to a deepening institutional collapse.
That collapse has created conditions in which criminal groups expanded their territorial control in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area and committed widespread abuses against the population. Security conditions deteriorated even further starting in 2023, when Haiti's then-largest criminal groups, G9 and G-Pèp, fought for control over Port-au-Prince communes. In 2024, they announced the formation of a coalition, Viv Ansanm, that has carried out coordinated attacks in Port-au-Prince.
People interviewed, who had come to the United States between 2012 and 2024, came from a range of walks of life in Haiti. Some said they had managed to pursue university studies and build middle-class lives there despite the country's chaotic conditions, with careers, jobs, businesses, or other sources of income, but that extortion, threats, and killings by criminal groups drove them to seek protection in the United States.
A 22-year-old woman who works as a housekeeper in Miami said that she fled Haiti after criminal groups set her house in Delmas on fire with her parents inside, because her father refused an extortion attempt. "They came to my house at night and set it on fire, my parents were inside and died in the blaze," she said. "They wanted to burn us because my father refused to pay them the US$200 they demanded, but that was everything he earned working for a textile company at the time [in 2021]. I survived because my father sent me a few days earlier to stay with an aunt."
Two sisters, ages 34 and 41, who came to the United States in 2023 and work at an assisted living facility in Florida, one as a care assistant and the other in housekeeping, said they fled Haiti after years of violence and fear. In Haiti, both had earned university degrees in administration. One sister, who had worked for a private company in Cité Soleil, said that the year she fled Haiti, she heard gunshots almost every day on her way to work as criminal groups clashed nearby. "I never knew when a bullet would hit me and I would fall dead," she said. "Several of my colleagues were killed that way, by stray bullets."
Her sister said she decided to flee after another sister of theirs survived an attempted kidnapping. She quit her job and applied for humanitarian parole with help from a relative in the United States. "I kept asking myself: if they kidnap me, what will happen to my child?" she said. "That fear stayed with me every day.… I did not want to leave my child without a mother."
A 27-year-old man from Cité Soleil, who now works as a cleaner at an assisted living facility in Florida, said criminal group members killed one of his friends and tried to kill him after they were unable to pay the money the criminal group members demanded.
"He was my best friend," the man said. "Our parents had made a great effort to send us to university, and that made the criminal group members think we had money, even though we studied at the State University of Haiti, which is public. They demanded that my friend and I each pay $50 a month, but we did not even have $10 a month for our own expenses. One day, as we were coming back from university, they ambushed us and shot at us, killing my friend. I managed to escape." He said he abandoned his engineering studies, and his family helped him travel to the United States.
A 36-year-old woman who had worked as a lawyer in Port-au-Prince and now works as a Certified Nursing Assistant in Miami said she fled Haiti after members of a criminal group attacked her home in Delmas in July 2022. "They stole everything from us and raped me," she said. "I had no choice but to leave the neighborhood, but I knew that wherever I went, it could happen to me again." Her mother, she said, gathered what she could to help her flee to the United States.
Criminal group members also attacked the home of a 31-year-old woman who had worked as an engineer for a multinational company in Haiti and now works as a caregiver at an assisted living facility in Florida. She said they raped her and killed her brother. "They rape women to subjugate us and break our families," she said. "There is no police or state authority to stop them. We have nowhere to go to save ourselves. The only option is to flee the country."
Violence escalated further in 2025, with killings reaching a new peak in the context of security operations. The increase came amid growing political instability following the establishment of a transitional government. The transitional authorities created a task force to fight criminal groups. That effort has relied heavily on wildly irresponsible attacks using drones armed with explosive munitions that have claimed the lives of many ordinary people along with alleged criminal group members.
Despite an international response aimed at stabilizing the situation, including the UN Security Council's authorization of the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission and its deployment in 2024, and its transition in 2025 into a new Gang Suppression Force, Haiti's security situation has continued to deteriorate.
Criminal groups now have expanded their presence beyond the capital to at least five of Haiti's ten departments and violence has continued to rise. Killings have increased by about 180 percent between 2022 and 2025, according to UN figures. Available data for 2026 suggests that this trend has continued, with at least 2,300 people killed as of June 15. The humanitarian consequences have been devastating, with a record 6.4 million Haitians in need of humanitarian assistance.
Several Haitians with TPS told Human Rights Watch that, having lived in the United States, criminal groups would see them as "white Haitians," that is, people with money, making them immediate targets for kidnapping and extortion.
Even those who said they might try to avoid areas controlled by criminal groups if they returned said life would be impossible given the country's near-total collapse. "I can't go back," said a 33-year-old woman who now works as a patient care assistant at a Miami hospital. "At best, I would have to move to a city outside the capital, but even there I don't know how I would survive. There is no work, no food, nothing. My options would be to die of hunger or violence."
Several people expressed fear of being sent to third countries with which they have no connection, a practice Human Rights Watch has documented in the context of the Trump administration's abusive immigration policies. "If the US government sends me to another country, where I do not know anyone and do not speak the language, it would be like being dead while still alive," said a 36-year-old woman who works as a waitress at a Miami hotel.
Impact on TPS Holders in Florida
Since the Trump administration moved to terminate TPS for Haitians, many Haitian TPS holders in Florida have faced prolonged legal and financial uncertainty. Community advocates told Human Rights Watch that, even before the Supreme Court decision, many people whose TPS-based work permits expired did not receive timely renewals, despite applying in advance, leaving them unsure of whether they could continue to work, access services, or make basic decisions for themselves and their families. As the TPS and related work authorization expire, that uncertainty has been replaced by the reality that many Haitian families are losing lawful status, income, and protection from deportation.
A 41-year-old TPS holder in Miami who had worked in construction said that he lost his job earlier this year after his TPS-based work permit card expired because his employer feared problems with immigration authorities. "I no longer know how I am going to provide for my family," he said. "I have two children, and one of them needs ongoing medical treatment for severe anemia. Now we are surviving on what my wife earns as a cook in a restaurant, but it is not enough to pay rent, food, and medical costs."
A 36-year-old woman who arrived in the United States after members of a criminal group tried to kidnap her, and who applied for TPS in 2021, said that her work permit card expired but her employer allowed her to keep working because she had filed her renewal application on time. "I do not know what will happen if my boss decides to fire me," she said. "He is also afraid he could face consequences for keeping me employed."
Even before the Supreme Court ruling, workers at Sant La, staff at private health centers, and representatives of other community organizations said that Haitian families had limited their movements and avoided hospitals, schools, job opportunities, and social service appointments. A physician who treats Haitian patients in South Florida said many TPS holders were afraid to leave their homes, even for medical care, because they fear being stopped, questioned, or not making it back home. As a result, he said, some patients missed appointments, struggled to continue treatment or obtain medication, and experienced stress-related health problems.
Dr. Marie Flore Lindor-Latortue, a representative of the Association of Exchange and Development of Activities and Partnership, a Miami-based organization that works with Haitian families and TPS recipients, said some parents stopped sending their children to public school. "They fear the children could be used to identify them, locate their homes, and expose them to detention," Lindor-Latortue said. "Some parents have shifted from public education to home schooling," she said, citing fear of immigration enforcement operations reported in other states.
A 37-year-old mother who previously worked as a personal caregiver in South Florida said that she stopped sending her 12-year-old daughter to school before the Supreme Court ruling and was teaching her at home because of the uncertainty over her family's legal status. She said that, even as litigation remained pending, many families feared that expired documents could put them at risk of immigration enforcement. "We have seen what has happened in other states, how ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] has gone to schools or used schools to identify immigrant children and their families," she said. "We are afraid that could happen to us."
Sant La's executive director said many Haitian TPS holders made no contingency plans for their US citizen children. "Many families have not decided whether their children would remain in the United States with a guardian or leave with them," she said, "in part because they lack legal support, reliable information, or the resources to prepare for possible separation."
The consequences also extend to access to health care. A physician who treats Haitian TPS holders at a private health center in South Florida said he has seen a marked increase in canceled appointments, patients struggling to continue treatment or obtain medication, and stress-related hypertension. Even before the Supreme Court decision, fewer patients were coming in person, he said, because Trump administration efforts to terminate TPS left many afraid to leave their homes. His clinic has begun exploring telemedicine and mobile care options. "People are simply afraid to go out," he said.
Community organizations providing legal guidance and social services to Haitian families in South Florida described the same pattern. "People are not coming to appointments, workshops, or programs," a Sant La staff member said. "The decline in attendance is not because people no longer need help, but because they are afraid to seek it."
Protection for Haitians in the United States
On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince, causing the worst humanitarian disaster in Haiti's history. The Haitian government estimated that more than 222,000 people were killed, 300,000 injured, and nearly 2.3 million displaced. Losses were estimated at $7.8 billion, more than 120 percent of Haiti's 2009 gross domestic product. The disaster deepened longstanding migration pressures driven by state fragility, political instability, poverty, violence, and limited access to basic goods, services, and economic opportunity.
The United States responded with several overlapping immigration measures, including the initial grant of TPS for eligible Haitians already in the United States, a temporary suspension of deportations to Haiti, humanitarian parole for certain Haitians, and, later, the Haitian Family Reunification Parole Program.
The Obama administration redesignated Haiti for TPS in 2011, citing the slow pace of earthquake recovery and the cholera epidemic, and later extended the designation through July 2017 based on continuing humanitarian and infrastructure crises, including Hurricane Sandy's impact and recurring cholera outbreaks. The first Trump administration initially extended Haiti's TPS designation through January 22, 2018, but later moved to terminate it. That decision was delayed by court challenges and ultimately, reversed by the Biden administration before that litigation could be decided on the merits.
Following the assassination of President Moïse in July 2021 and a second devastating earthquake in August 2021, the Biden administration redesignated Haiti for TPS on August 3, citing serious security concerns, social unrest, an increase in human rights abuses, crippling poverty, and a lack of basic resources. Through two subsequent redesignations, the Biden administration expanded TPS eligibility to newly arrived Haitians, with protections set to run through February 3, 2026.
In 2025, the Trump administration first shortened Haiti's TPS extension to August 2025 and then announced it would terminate the designation in September 2025, saying conditions in Haiti no longer warranted protection. A federal judge blocked that move, ruling that the administration did not have statutory authority to truncate an existing grant of TPS. The US Department of Homeland Security issued a new termination notice in November 2025 that did not attempt to shorten the existing TPS period, setting an end date of February 3, 2026.
On February 2, 2026, a federal district court in Washington, DC, stayed the termination pending judicial review, keeping TPS protections and work authorization in place. The Trump administration sought emergency review by the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case on an expedited basis without disturbing the district court's stay. On June 25, the Supreme Court ruled that the TPS holders challenging the termination were not "entitled to orders postponing the terminations during litigation," that the TPS statute bars their non-constitutional claims, and that their constitutional claim "will likely fail."
Obstacles to Alternative Protection
Representatives of Haitian community organizations in Florida said that since 2010, many Haitians have applied for TPS, because it is the most immediate and accessible form of protection available to them. They said many Haitians met TPS eligibility criteria following successive extensions and redesignations, while asylum was often seen as costly, lengthy, and difficult to obtain because of the evidentiary burden and the way US authorities apply the legal standard to conditions in Haiti.
"In 2010, there were many Haitians, including victims of violence, who were already in the United States without legal status," a Sant La staff member said. "When TPS was designated, many of them became eligible." Later extensions and redesignations, the representative said, allowed others who fled Haiti amid worsening violence, insecurity, and state collapse, some arriving by land or sea, others through parole or other temporary programs, to qualify for TPS. "Many ultimately applied for TPS because it was the fastest and least costly way to obtain protection and work authorization in the United States," the representative said.
Only two people interviewed said that they had applied for asylum after arriving in the United States and that their applications remain pending. Most, however, said they did not know what options were available to regularize their immigration status when they arrived, faced language barriers because they spoke only Haitian Creole or French, and could not afford legal assistance.
All said they ultimately applied for TPS because it was the most accessible option available to them: the application could be submitted online through US Citizenship and Immigration Services with an identity document, proof of residence, and a payment of approximately $40 to $50.
A 29-year-old woman who works as a Home Health Aide in Florida said that she applied for TPS rather than asylum, even though she had been directly affected by violence in Haiti. She said she did not understand the full range of protection options when she arrived and could not afford a lawyer to help her pursue an asylum claim. "People in the Haitian community told me the easiest option was to apply for TPS online," she said. "What I needed most was work authorization, so I could support myself and send money to my family."
While TPS provides temporary protection from deportation and access to work authorization, it does not provide a pathway to permanent residence. As a result, many Haitian TPS holders have lived and worked lawfully in the United States for years while remaining in a precarious and temporary status.
"I entered the United States in 2021 fleeing Haiti's disaster, I started a family and found several jobs. I have never stopped working," said a 34-year-old man who had worked in housekeeping at hotels and restaurants, in construction and transportation in Miami with a TPS-based work permit. "In December 2025, my work permit expired, and I applied to renew it. But amid the uncertainty over TPS, I have received no update on my application, and my current employer fired me. I have spent five years living in constant uncertainty, unable to plan for the future and surviving day to day. Now, without income, my family and I are surviving with help from neighbors."
