Legal status for thousands of Haitians in limbo as Trump seeks to end temporary protected status

The immigration status of more than 5,000 Haitians working and living legally in the metropolitan area, along with hundreds of thousands of more nationwide, hangs in the balance as the federal government wants to end a long-held immigration designation.

Temporary protected status, a legal designation granted to nationals hailing from a select list of countries facing human-made or natural disaster-related turmoil, was expected to be canceled for Haiti on Tuesday, according to an announcement from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Late Monday, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from ending the program, which has allowed roughly 350,000 Haitians to live and work in the United States.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes granted a pause to ending TPS for Haitians while a lawsuit contesting it proceeds.

Ending TPS for Haiti is part of a larger effort by President Donald Trump to discontinue the program for multiple countries that have it, local immigration experts said.

Economists who study the region told Newsday the removal of the status for Haiti, and for other countries, would hurt the local and national economies by getting rid of long-held legal statuses and work authorizations from law-abiding immigrant groups that contribute to the economy and federal programs like Social Security.

"The only thing it can do is bring legal, tax-paying work underground into illegal, non-taxpaying activities," said Juan Carlos Conesa, an economics professor  at Stony Brook University.

TPS recipients contribute more than $36 billion to the country’s annual gross domestic product, according to a report by the Penn Wharton Budget Model at the University of Pennsylvania. The loss of their work authorization would likely exacerbate labor shortages in construction, cleaning and hospitality in New York and other states, including Florida and Texas.

"The loss of TPS is going to be devastating nationally and devastating on Long Island," said Jessica Greenburg, an immigration attorney and legal director for the Central American Refugee Center, which has offices in Hempstead and Brentwood.

Here is some key information to know about the potential end of TPS for Haiti.

What is TPS and how is it different from other immigration designations?

"TPS came about in 1990, initially when the executive branch was frustrated with the impossibility of getting legislation passed around immigration reform but recognized there were certain groups of people who needed immediate protections," said Nancy Hiemstra, an associate professor of humanities at Stony Brook University and an immigration policy researcher.

That status, first given to El Salvador amid its multiyear civil war, was designed to provide foreign nationals living in the United States the opportunity to temporarily live and work here if their country was determined to be unsafe due to natural disasters or internal strife, according to Congress.gov.

Unlike asylum status, which can provide a pathway to eventual citizenship, those with TPS do not have a path to permanent residency regardless of the number of years an individual has lived lawfully in the United States, Hiemstra said.

What role do Haitian TPS holders play in the regional economy?

While exact figures aren’t available for the number of Haitian TPS holders on Long Island, economists said the population plays a major role in the health care and elder care sectors.

"One of the things that we do see is that Haitian immigrants in particular have historically gone into service occupations, and even more critically, into health care," said Steven Kent, an assistant professor of economics at Molloy University and chief economist for the Long Island Association business group.

"Everything from RNs to home health aides to nursing assistants ... that’s been where a lot of them have gone to work," Kent said.

While a relatively small population compared with overall immigrants, TPS holders make up 15% of all noncitizen health care workers, with more than 20% of Haitians across the country working in health care, according to figures provided by U.S. Rep Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.),  co-chair of the House Haiti Caucus, in a recent news release on the subject.

There are 330,735 Haitian TPS holders across the country, according to Congress.gov, and about 5,000 in the downstate region, according to the New York Immigration Coalition. 

What economic impact would the loss of Haiti’s TPS status have?

"One of the broader concerns for really any economy, whether it's national or on Long Island is that population is one of the factors in economic growth," Kent said. "When we see a decline in that, it does cause concern."

Given the Island’s aging population and the role Haitians play in health care, it is likely that prices for eldercare and other health services could go up as wages increase to make up for a lack of workers, he said.

If TPS holders from El Salvador, Haiti and Honduras were removed from the labor force, the United States would lose an estimated $164 billion in GDP over a 10-year period, according to a 2017 analysis by the Center for American Progress that coincided with Trump’s first term and unsuccessful attempts then to remove TPS for several counties, including Haiti.

Additional analysis that same year from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center found that the loss of those workers would result in the loss of $6.9 billion in contributions to Social Security and Medicare. Employers would also see a combined $967 million in turnover costs in that period, the analysis found.

Why was Haiti granted TPS status?

Haiti first received TPS status after the 2010 earthquake there killed 300,000, or 3%, of the  island nation’s population. In 2024, under the Biden administration, the status was redesignated in light of ongoing political instability, gang violence, economic hardship and the lingering affects of natural disasters.

Before its reauthorization two years ago, the TPS status for Haiti had been extended multiple times since 2010, according to Congress.gov.

What challenges exist to the federal policy?

In January, courts held that the Department of Homeland Security overstepped in ending the TPS status for Venezuela in October and seeking an end to Haiti’s status this month, though the ruling is unlikely to have an effect on nationals from those countries working in the United States, said Ala Amoachi, an East Islip immigration attorney.

"There’s no class of persons more deserving or of good moral character as TPS holders because of the stringent requirements," Amoachi said.

U.S. Rep. Laura Gillen (D-Rockville Centre) held a news conference late last month to call on the Department of Homeland Security to extend TPS for Haitian nationals before Tuesday, warning that expiration would "tear Haitian families apart" and force law-abiding taxpayers to return to "life-threating danger in Haiti."

With AP