Appeals court blocks Trump bid to end TPS for 350,000 Haitians

The ruling preserves the right to live and work in the United States for hundreds of thousands of Haitians who have held TPS protections since 2010, when the designation was first triggered by a catastrophic earthquake. The Trump administration has moved to terminate TPS for more than a million people across several nationalities; some of those terminations face pending challenges in federal courts.

A federal appeals court ruled Friday against the Trump administration’s effort to revoke Temporary Protected Status for roughly 350,000 Haitians living in the United States, dealing a setback to the administration’s mass deportation campaign.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued the decision 2-1, upholding a lower court’s ruling that had blocked the revocation.

“The government’s failure to meet its burden of demonstrating irreparable harm alone justifies denying emergency relief that would upend the status quo and increase uncertainty while this appeal proceeds,” the court said.

A message seeking comment was left Saturday with the Department of Homeland Security.

What TPS provides

Temporary Protected Status can be granted by the Homeland Security secretary when conditions in a home country are deemed too dangerous for safe return due to natural disasters, political instability, or other threats. The designation grants holders the right to live and work in the United States but does not provide a pathway to citizenship.

Haiti’s TPS designation was first activated in 2010 following a catastrophic earthquake and has been extended multiple times. The country continues to face severe gang violence that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, according to the Associated Press.

Broader scope of TPS rollbacks

Beyond the Haitian case, the Trump administration has sought to terminate TPS protections across multiple nationalities as part of a wider mass deportation effort. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — whom President Trump announced he was firing on Thursday — had terminated protections for approximately 600,000 Venezuelans, 60,000 people from Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal, more than 160,000 Ukrainians, and thousands of people from Afghanistan and Cameroon, according to the AP. Some of those terminations face pending challenges in federal courts.