Press Release

Washington, D.C. – The #WelcomeWithDignity Campaign condemns the Trump administration’s decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for approximately 500,000 Haitians who have found safety and stability in the United States. When TPS expires this August, Haitians across the country – our cherished neighbors, community members, friends, and family – will lose their work permits and face potential deportation to a country embroiled in catastrophic political violence and insecurity. With the stroke of a pen, the administration has threatened the livelihoods of our Haitian neighbors and placed families at risk of permanent separation and grave violence. 

For years, the President and his allies have expressed abhorrent anti-Black racism towards Haitians seeking safety, adopting cruel policies and hateful rhetoric that endanger Haitians and other Black immigrants. From racial epithets flung at Haiti and African countries, to mass expulsions of Haitian refugees under his first administration, to the racist lies spewed on the 2024 campaign trail, the president has long embraced the United States’ shameful tradition of discrimination and abuse against Haitians – mistreatment Amnesty International has found amounts to race-based torture. 

The #WelcomeWithDignity Campaign calls on the Trump administration to immediately reinstate TPS for Haiti, honoring the Biden-era extension through February 2026. As deteriorating conditions in Haiti continue to meet the statutory requirements, the administration should also promptly extend and redesignate TPS. The Trump administration and all elected officials must end racist scapegoating of Black immigrants and reject rhetoric that incites violence against our communities.

The Trump administration’s termination of TPS for Haiti is the latest in a relentless series of attacks on people seeking safety in the United States. On his first day in office, President Trump illegally suspended asylum processing at the border, halted refugee resettlement, and ended a successful program that allowed people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to pursue their immigration cases in safety. On February 3, the administration rescinded TPS for Venezuela, placing 350,000 Venezuelans who found refuge from violence and political repression at risk of deportation when they lose protection this April. This week the administration issued – and after significant public outcry, rescinded – a stop work order pausing the Unaccompanied Children Program, placing nearly 26,000 unaccompanied immigrant children at risk of losing legal representation.

The cruelty of these policies is staggering. The administration must immediately reverse course and reinstate TPS for Haiti and Venezuela, restore life-saving pathways to protection, and resume asylum processing at the southern border.

“This decision is an outright attack on Haitian families who have built their lives in the United States,” Guerline Jozef, Executive Director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, said. “It is cruel, unnecessary, and ignores the dire reality in Haiti. The potential deportation of over 500,000 Haitians is an act of violence on Black immigrants to a country crippled by instability and will result in a humanitarian catastrophe. The Trump administration must reverse this decision immediately and uphold its moral and legal responsibility to protect vulnerable populations. This decision once again proves that the current administration doesn’t have an ‘immigration’ issue or any desire to support ‘legal’ pathways. These decisions are deeply rooted in anti-Black, anti-Haitian prejudices and white supremacist ideologies.”

“The decision marks a continuation of Trump’s relentless efforts to terminate TPS for Haiti,” said Patrice Lawrence, Executive Director of UndocuBlack Network (UBN). “Firstly to our community members, I remind ourselves that nothing is yet final and we have fought and won before. In 2017, his administration attempted to revoke protections for over 50,000 Haitians, falsely claiming the country had “recovered” from the 2010 earthquake. Federal courts blocked the move, citing its disregard for Haiti’s ongoing crises. Now, Trump has reignited his vendetta, this time targeting hundreds of thousands of additional Haitian migrants. We stand unwaveringly in community with our Haitian siblings. This is not about policy. It is about racism, plain and simple. Trump’s obsession with terminating TPS for Black and Brown immigrants, has always been fueled by racist lies designed to strip our siblings of their humanity. Reviving the grotesque ‘pet-eating’ myth—a vile, anti-Black stereotype steeped in centuries of bigotry—is not just a lie. It is a weapon. A weapon meant to justify tearing families from their homes, schools, and communities, and casting them back into the chaos they fled. But we see the truth: Haitian lives are sacred. Their resilience is our collective strength. We will fight, hand in hand, until this injustice is overturned and their right to safety is affirmed.”

“TPS is a legal and lifesaving pathway for people desperately seeking safety. Terminating protections for our Venezuelan and Haitian neighbors, especially at a time when these countries are still experiencing political upheaval, violence, and insecurity, is recklessly irresponsible and deeply inhumane,” said Nili Sarit Yossinger, Executive Director of Refugee Congress. “Refugee Congress stands firmly for the protection of all forcibly displaced people. We strongly urge the administration to immediately reverse this harmful decision and reinstate, extend, and redesignate TPS. Turning our backs on people in need is not leadership — it is a failure of our duty to protect our most vulnerable neighbors.

“The decision to revoke TPS is yet another cruel attack on Haitian immigrants, who have long been subject to inhumane and discriminatory policies, as well as violent anti-Black rhetoric by the president and his allies,” said Blaine Bookey, Legal Director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS). “The Biden administration extended TPS for Haiti in recognition of the country’s dire humanitarian conditions, where deadly political violence has displaced over one million people within Haiti’s borders, and powerful armed groups have escalated attacks on communities, including, as documented by our partners, systematic sexual violence against women and children. For many Haitians, deportation could amount to a death sentence. As I hear daily from aid workers and advocates on the ground in Haiti, deportations only create more instability, exacerbating the country’s displacement crisis and undermining their efforts to restore peace and democracy, which they undertake at great risk to their own safety.”  

“We stand with our Haitian neighbors and friends in crying out in outrage against the Trump administration’s decision to revoke TPS,” said Alice Levine, a member of Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice of Western MA. “Based both on the teachings of Judaism and the history of oppression of Jews around the world, we cannot stand by as another group is sent back to danger and probable death in their home country. In 1939, the MS St. Louis carried over 900 Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe. The United States, Cuba, and Canada all refused to let the ship land; it was sent back to Europe, where close to half of those on board were slaughtered by the Nazis. As History.com reports, ‘In 2012, the United States Department of State formally apologized to the survivors of the ship, and in 2018, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau followed suit. But the memory of those who died is still a painful reminder of what a refusal to adjust immigration policies in light of persecution and migration crises can mean. “We were not wanted,” St. Louis survivor Susan Schleger told a Miami Herald reporter in 1989. “[We were] abandoned by the world.”’”

“CARECEN SF strongly condemns the Department of Homeland Security decision to reduce the redesignation period for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti from 18 months to 12 months, now set to expire on August 3 of this year,” said Lariza Dugan Cuadra, Executive Director at the Central American Resource Center of Northern California – CARECEN SF. “The US Congress legislated TPS, which is “granted when it is determined unsafe for people to return to their country of origin due to armed conflict, natural disasters or other extraordinary conditions,” all of which apply to Haiti. The United States cannot disregard the complex and multifaceted humanitarian crisis facing Haiti, the most impoverished nation in the Western Hemisphere. Over half of Haiti’s population lives in extreme poverty, and the country continues to endure the devastating aftermath of a magnitude 7.2 earthquake, the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021 by armed groups, and the ongoing recruitment of children by these violent factions. These conditions make it clear that extending and protecting TPS for Haitians is not only a legal necessity but also a moral imperative. CARECEN SF stands in unwavering solidarity with the Haitian community and remains committed to advocating for the protection and rights of all vulnerable populations. We call on the U.S. government to uphold its humanitarian obligations by ensuring the safety and stability of those who would face extreme hardship if forced to return to Haiti.”

“Deporting families to a country embroiled in widespread gang violence, political instability, and a hunger crisis is inhumane,” said Danilo Zak, Director of Policy at Church World Service. “This action follows the President and his allies’ series of fearmongering attacks on the Haitian community. CWS has supported thousands of Haitians seeking safety who have culturally and economically contributed to our communities and built their lives here. Subjecting them to quick deportations will harm countless families and wreak havoc on local economies.”

“The overtly racist and xenophobic task of the Trump Administration is to make as many black and brown people exposed to their hardline immigration enforcement policies by taking away protections that have served the nation and the communities well for many years,” said Angelica Salas, Executive Director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA). “Human beings are going to be harmed by these policies and the American public should be outraged. This is not a mandate, it is a cruel vendetta that will have real, humane, and economic consequences in every community in the nation. Shame on President Trump and his loyalists for inflicting so much unnecessary pain and suffering on the most vulnerable of communities.”

“Following a campaign plagued by abhorrent racist rhetoric targeting Haitians, the Trump administration is again targeting the Haitian community,”said Eleanor Acer, Senior Director for Refugee Protection at Human Rights First. “This is a shameful move to deprive Haitians of their legal status and force them to return to danger despite the dire risks to their safety and lives. Decisions regarding Temporary Protected Status should be based on assessments of country conditions, and there is no question that conditions in Haiti are horrific. The United Nations recently warned that dangers in Haiti have escalated and reiterated its call on all countries to not force people to return. We stand with the Haitian community and urge the Trump administration to reverse course and instead take steps to extend and redesignate TPS for Haitians.”

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The #WelcomeWithDignity Campaign for asylum rights is composed of more than 125 organizations committed to transforming the way the United States receives and protects people forced to flee their homes to ensure they are treated humanely and fairly. To learn more about what we stand for, visit us online: https://wwdignity.org/solutions; to request an interview with an experts from the #WelcomeWithDignity Campaign, visit us here: welcomewithdignity.org