Photo Haitian immigrant in Santiago, Chile holding the Haitian flag by Sebastian via flickr.
Haiti: Trump Administration Ends TPS
The Trump Administration announced it will end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) early for about 500,000 Haitians living in the United States, exposing them to deportation as soon as Sept. 2. This comes three months after the Trump Administration revoked legal protections for thousands of Haitians who arrived legally in the country under a humanitarian parole program.
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced the decision on June 27, three days after the U.S. Embassy in Haiti renewed a warning urging U.S. citizens to depart Haiti as soon as they are able. Earlier in June, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk warned that the human rights crisis in Haiti had plummeted to a new low, with gang violence expanding past the city centers and displacing a record number of people.
“Alarming as they are, numbers cannot express the horrors Haitians are being forced to endure on a daily basis,” said Türk. “At this time of untold suffering and fear, I reiterate my call to all States not to forcibly return anyone to Haiti, and to ensure that Haitians who have fled their country are protected against any kind of discrimination and stigmatization,” he added.
Efforts to combat gang violence on the island nation have so far failed in their objective. June 25 marked the one-year anniversary of the arrival of a contingent of Kenyan security forces as part of a Multinational Security Support Mission (MSSM) authorized by the UN Security Council. The mission has met with serious opposition as the security forces find themselves outnumbered and outgunned. A 2020 UN report estimated that the country has up to 500,000 small arms, the vast majority in the hands of civilians. Many of these trace back to the United States. Haiti is approximately 600 miles away from Miami, and the United States is the largest gun manufacturer in the world. There is no domestic manufacture of guns or ammunition in Haiti.
To address this discrepancy, members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee reintroduced H.R. 2643, the Haiti Criminal Collusion Transparency Act. The bill would require the Secretary of State to submit an annual report to Congress regarding the ties between criminal gangs and political and economic elites in Haiti and impose sanctions on political and economic elites involved in such criminal activities.
A federal judge blocked the order ending TPS for Haitians on July 1, restoring the Feb. 3, 2026 deadline.
Faith in action: Write to your members of Congress in support of Haitian Immigrants. Edit the message to mention the Haiti Criminal Collusion Transparency Act https://mogc.me/ACT-Haiti