Appeals court upholds protected status for 350,000 Haitians.
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
By MIRIAM JORDAN
A federal appeals court late last week upheld a lower court’s ruling that the Trump administration had unlawfully terminated Temporary Protected Status for Haiti, giving a reprieve to the hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in the United States.
The 2-1 ruling allows the over 350,000 Haitians in the United States covered by TPS to remain shielded from deportation, continue to work legally and maintain their protected status while a lawsuit challenging the termination proceeds in federal court. The latest ruling came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
The long-term fate of Haitians with the status is still unclear because the Trump administration is likely to file an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court seeking to rescind the protection while the case is being litigated.
Under the Trump administration, the Department of Homeland Security has sought to widen the scope of its deportation campaign by announcing terminations of TPS for hundreds of thousands of people from Haiti, Venezuela and several other nations.
In the ongoing lawsuit over the protection for Haitians, the government asked an appellate court to stay a Feb. 2 ruling by District Judge Ana C. Reyes that had blocked the program’s termination. Reyes determined that the Trump administration had violated statutory requirements for revoking the status, notably by failing to review on-the-ground conditions in Haiti.
In a brief order denying the government’s emergency request for a stay, the court found that the government had failed to demonstrate that it would suffer “irreparable harm” if Haitians were allowed to remain in the United States while the case proceeds. It also said that the plaintiffs in the case were likely to succeed on the merits.
“In its stay motion, the government takes a minimalist approach to addressing the injuries it faces, arguing only that the district court’s order imposes irreparable harm because it is an ‘improper intrusion into the workings’ of the executive,” the order said, adding that the government did not give sufficient justification as to how or why that would be the case.
“On the other side of the ledger, the plaintiffs face substantial and well-documented harms,” the court wrote on Friday.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Geoff Pipoly, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, welcomed the appellate decision.
“The ruling ensures that Haitian TPS holders, who make America greater and stronger both economically and culturally, will get to stay here in safety at least a while longer,” said Pipoly, who is a partner at the law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.
Congress created TPS in 1990 to allow citizens of countries experiencing armed conflict, natural disasters or other extraordinary crises to remain in the United States if returning to their homelands would imperil them.
The Department of Homeland Security periodically reviews conditions to determine whether to extend or terminate a country’s designation, and Haiti has received multiple extensions over the years amid a protracted humanitarian crisis and deepening security risks.
The legal battle stems from a directive issued by the Department of Homeland Security in late November to end Haiti’s TPS effective Feb. 3. The agency’s secretary at the time, Kristi Noem, said that Haiti no longer faced “extraordinary” conditions and that keeping the designation in place was “contrary to the national interest.”
The plaintiffs, several TPS recipients from Haiti, sued to prevent the termination, arguing that the administration’s decision had been driven by political considerations rather than an objective assessment of the conditions in Haiti.
The February ruling by Reyes preserved the status quo, allowing Haitian TPS holders, whose status was set to expire the next day, to lawfully remain in the United States while the case proceeds.
In her decision, Reyes noted that the Trump administration had rescinded the designation for 12 countries since last year without conducting individualized analyses, which she said backed the plaintiffs’ claims that stripping Haitians of the status had been preordained.
The judge also concluded that the Trump administration’s decision was motivated by racial or national origin animus, citing statements by senior government officials about Haitian and other nonwhite immigrants.
The administration appealed the decision to the D.C. Circuit on Feb. 6.
Two of the three judges on the panel that heard the case, Florence Y. Pan and Bradley N. Garcia, were appointed by President Joe Biden. The other, Justin R. Walker, was appointed by President Donald Trump.
In his dissent, Walker said that any time the executive branch cannot enact its preferred policies, it is irreparably harmed by definition. He said the government would be harmed by “an improper intrusion by the federal court into the workings of a coordinate branch of the government.”
Florida, New York and Massachusetts have America’s largest Haitian communities, but smaller ones have taken root in other parts of the country.
Springfield, Ohio, a city of about 58,000 people, is now home to more than 10,000 Haitians, and leaders and residents there have closely followed the TPS case. The city was thrust into the national spotlight during the 2024 presidential campaign after Trump repeated false claims that Haitians there were eating their neighbors’ pets.
After the district court’s decision, bomb threats on Feb. 9 prompted closures of schools and municipal buildings in Springfield. Reyes also reported that she had received death threats.
Carl Ruby, pastor of Central Christian Church in Springfield, said “Haitians have been holding their breath” in his city.
“This will provide a measure of relief,” he said. “But until the Supreme Court affirms the ruling, their future hangs in the balance.”
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