President Donald Trump's Department of Homeland Security has taken the highly unusual step of revoking an extension of temporary protected status from roughly 520,000 Haitians in the United States — which will effectively flip more than half a million immigrants from legal to illegal in August, reported The Wall Street Journal.
The Biden administration extended the TPS deadline, which shields people who come from war-torn countries from deportation and grants them work permits, until 2026. However, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has judged that extension improper, and rolled it back, leaving Haitian TPS recipients with just about half a year before they can be arrested and removed.
Large portions of Haiti are effectively under the control of criminal gangs, and many Haitians living in America could face severe danger if deported.
This follows Trump's decision to let TPS protections expire for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who fled the economic and political crises in that country — prompting many Venezuelan-Americans who backed Trump to express fury that their friends and neighbors were being targeted.
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"It is likely the decision will be challenged in court, as it is unclear whether revoking a TPS extension is legal," reported the Journal. "Already, an advocacy organization called the National TPS alliance is challenging Trump’s Venezuela decision, saying the move to terminate those protections was done without adequate consideration and was motivated by racial bias."
"This is insane. Never has a TPS extension been terminated before the date of its expiration," wrote Daniel Di Martino, a Venezuelan-American conservative scholar, economics doctoral student, fellow of the Manhattan Institute, and adviser to the Young America's Foundation. "Sometimes I think that they want to be sued and be ineffective. Like with Venezuela, they could have waited until 2026 and let things expire without legal trouble. Now they will be caught up in years of litigation that they may lose."
Haitians working in the United States under TPS became a flashpoint issue in last year's election when Trump pushed a baseless internet hoax that Haitians working in the city of Springfield, Ohio were abducting and eating people's dogs and cats.
