A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in January 2019 temporarily blocking the Trump administration’s decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status for an estimated 60,000 Haitians living in the United States. The ruling provided temporary relief for a community that had lived under legal protection since Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake.
TPS allowed Haitian nationals to live and work legally in the United States in the aftermath of the earthquake that killed over 200,000 people and left more than a million homeless. The Trump administration had announced plans to end the program, arguing that Haiti had recovered sufficiently from the disaster.
Haitian advocacy groups and immigration attorneys celebrated the injunction as a significant victory, though they cautioned that the legal fight was far from over. Organizations representing TPS holders argued that Haiti remained politically and economically unstable and that forced return would place tens of thousands of families in danger.
The case drew national attention as part of a broader debate in the United States over immigration policy, with Haitian community leaders arguing that TPS holders had built lives, families, and businesses over nearly a decade of legal residence.