Haitians and Clergy Sue Over End of Protection from Deportation

By Jacqueline Charles

Miami Herald

Updated March 14, 2025 

Nine Haitians, a powerful labor union and a Protestant group are suing President Donald Trump and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over their decision to cut short more than a half-million Haitians’ legal immigration protections in the United States by six months. The lawsuit alleges that the end of the deportation protection, known as Temporary Protected Status or TPS, was done in violation of U.S. immigration law and without the proper periodic review that the statute requires. The suit, filed in federal court in the Eastern District of New York late Friday, also says the decision was driven by Trump’s “racial animus towards non-white immigrants.”

The 45-page suit highlights a number of disparaging comments that Trump and members of his administration have made about non-white immigrants, and Haitians in particular. They include comments about immigrants “poisoning the blood” of America, repeated slurs from Trump that Haitians “probably have AIDS,” and the false claims that he and Vice President JD Vance repeatedly made during the recent presidential campaign about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, eating their neighbors’ pets. These claims suggest “a discriminatory animus against Haitians in particular, and nonwhite immigrants generally based on their perceived race, ethnicity, and national origin,” the suit says. The suit also highlights other public statements that have been made by Trump’s surrogates, including his Homeland Security secretary, and political allies. The comments are evidence “that, as in the first Trump administration, the decision to end Haiti’s TPS designation was a preordained decision rather than a product of the statutorily mandated review process,” the suit claims.

DHS has yet to respond to the Miami Herald’s request for comments. The plaintiffs are asking the court to block the administration’s order, which puts Haitians at risk of being returned to a country overrun by deadly gangs. In the last month alone, members of a powerful armed group coalition have forced more than 42,500 Haitians in Port-au-Prince to flee their homes amid intensifying violence. The displacements have compounded an already worsening humanitarian crisis in Haiti, where aid workers this week reported a resurgence of deadly waterborne cholera and more than 1 million people continue to be displaced with nowhere to go other than soiled, makeshift camps with no potable water, latrines or access to medical care. “The sudden curtailing of Haiti’s TPS designation has created tremendous fear and stress among hundreds of thousands of law-abiding and hardworking TPS holders and their families, many of whom are the parishioners of our congregation and which include children born in the United States who should not be forced to choose between their country and their parents,” said Pastor Samuel Nicolas, president of the Haitian Evangelical Clergy Association. “Haitian clergy and community leaders stand in solidarity with them.”

Along with NYU Professor Ellie Happel, lawyers have also filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit demanding the administration turn over decision memos and country-condition reports for Haiti and 14 other countries currently designated under the TPS program. Last month, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced that Haiti’s TPS designation, which has allowed Haitians to temporarily remain in the United States with work permits while their country is in turmoil, would end Aug. 3. The announcement came after a similar decision concerning Venezuelan migrants with the status, and it rescinded a decision by the Biden administration. The Biden administration had extended TPS for Haiti until Feb. 3, 2026. In announcing the decision, Trump’s DHS accused then-President Joe Biden and then-DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of attempting “to tie the hands of the Trump administration by extending Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status by 18 months — far longer than justified or necessary.”

The same argument was used when the DHS cut short the provision for Venezuelans, whose status was also shortened. “Trump and Noem’s actions are illegal under the TPS statute and our international promise that we will never return people to countries where their lives or freedom are threatened,” said Ira Kurzban, of Kurzban Kurzban Tetzeli & Pratt. “The actions challenged in this complaint represent a depth of cruelty typical of authoritarian and fascist governments but inconsistent with our values and history as a welcoming nation.” To bolster their argument, Kurzban and the lawyers cite the State Department’s assessment of the ongoing gang-led turmoil in Haiti and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent acknowledgment that the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission trying to help combat the gangs “will not be enough” to “be successful at rooting out armed groups that today have taken possession of large portion[s] of Haitian territory.” “Rather than make any determinations with respect to the conditions in Haiti or the national interest of the United States, Secretary Noem merely criticized her predecessor’s most recent extension and redesignation decision,” the suit said.

Kurzban and Sejal Zota, legal director of Just Futures Law, were among the lawyers who sued Trump during his first term when he tried to revoke TPS for Haiti and several other countries. That suit, which included some of the same plaintiffs in the new Friday lawsuit and was also filed in the same New York federal court, won an injunction in 2019 against Trump’s decision to terminate Haiti TPS. “As this Court recognized years ago — the executive branch does not have unbridled authority to end a country’s TPS designation on a whim,” the lawyers wrote in their new lawsuit. All of the plaintiffs, with the exception of a certified nursing assistant who lives in Port St. Lucie, live in the New York area. The new lawsuit is the latest in a slew of legal challenges that the Trump administration is facing. Similar to other immigration-related lawsuits, it seeks to reverse the Trump administration’s decisions regarding temporary protections against deportation for migrants living in the U.S. Attorneys for the Haitian plaintiffs point out that Haiti is no way ready to handle their return, which would put their clients at risk of being targeted for kidnapping, robbery, rape or murder. More than 5,600 individuals were killed in gang-related violence in Haiti last year. Up to 90% of the capital is under gang control. As a result, 5.5 million Haitians are now struggling to find enough to eat while 2 million are facing famine, according to the United Nations. "This week, gangs attacked two media outlets and forced the displacement of several groups of Catholic nuns and the orphans they care for. “The consequences are dire and potentially life threatening,” the lawsuit said. “There are no essential services — no police, few hospital beds, little food, water, or adequate shelter. Moreover, if deported, TPS holders may face a statutory bar that would prevent them from returning to the United States for ten years, even to visit their own children, who they may be forced to leave behind.”

Ahead of Friday’s lawsuit, several other challenges had been filed in federal courts. One suit in Boston represents Haitian and Venezuelan TPS beneficiaries. Another, also filed in Boston, includes citizens of Afghanistan, Ukraine and Nicaragua among its eight plaintiffs. All of the individuals came to the United States through Biden-era parole programs, and they are challenging the end of the program alongside the advocacy group Haitian Bridge Alliance. The parole measures allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants, including Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, fleeing crises at home to come to the U.S. as long as they and their sponsors met certain criteria. Trump, on his first day back in office on Jan. 20, signed executive orders shutting down the parole programs, whose beneficiaries are now among those his administration are also targeting for deportation. The first Boston suit accuses the administration of discriminating against both Haitians and Venezuelans based on their race, ethnicity or national original and cites “dehumanizing and disparaging statements” that Trump has made against Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants, including by making the false claim that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating dogs and cats. Last week, the attorney generals for 18 states filed an amicus brief in support of another TPS lawsuit, this one filed in the U.S. District for the Northern District of California on behalf the National TPS Alliance, an advocacy group for immigrants who have been granted TPS, and seven Venezuelans living in the U.S. Like with Haitians, Noem had decided to cut short their status, which will now end on April 7. That decision, the attorney generals argue, rests “largely on such erroneous and unsubstantiated assertions,” and rather than being a burden or threats to their states, Venezuelan TPS holders “are a resounding benefit.”

This story was originally published March 14, 2025 at 6:33 PM.

Photo Credit: Miami Herald