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Haitians Need Protection, Not Deportation
June 30, 2026
Haiti is facing a multifaceted humanitarian catastrophe. The U.S. State Department maintains a Level 4: Do Not Travel advisory for the country, and the Federal Aviation Administration currently prohibits any commercial flights from the United States to the capital of Port-au-Prince. In January, Bishop Brendan Cahill, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration, and Bishop A. Elias Zaidan, chairman of the Committee on International Justice and Peace, made clear “[t]here is simply no realistic opportunity for the safe and orderly return of people to Haiti at this time.”
Last November, in spite of the ongoing conditions, the Secretary of Homeland Security announced the termination of temporary protected status (TPS) for Haiti, effective February 3, 2026. While the TPS termination was challenged in court, the recent resolution of that case paves the way for it to move forward and deprive so many vulnerable Haitians here of their ability to remain. Bishop Cahill described the reality now facing Haitians who have been relying on TPS as a “moral crisis” and underscored “we as a nation cannot turn a blind eye to such an injustice and the impossible choices it will create for families and communities.”
In March, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill that would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to extend Haiti’s TPS designation to 2029 (H.R. 1689). The Senate version of that bill was introduced in June (S. 4814).
Temporary protected status allows nationals of a particular country, who have been present in the United States since a specified date and pass criminal background checks, to remain in the United States lawfully for the duration of the TPS designation. It does not provide a basis upon which someone from that country can request permanent residence or citizenship in the United States. As of June 2026, over 300,000 Haitians in the United States were relying on TPS.
While the bishops have recognized TPS is a temporary measure, forcibly returning thousands of families to Haiti at this moment would not only endanger their lives but would further destabilize Haiti itself, plunging it further into crisis. Now is the time to urge senators to support S. 4814 in order to prevent this injustice from occurring.
UPDATE: The future of the Temporary Protected Status program, and the legal status of 270,000 people who still have it, is at risk after a big Supreme Court ruling on June 25, 2026.
The court's ruling allowed the current U.S. administration to move forward with cancelling TPS for two countries, Haiti and Syria. But it also underscored that the secretary of homeland security decides whether to grant someone this status, or end it, and it's not up to the courts to weigh in. That gives the Administration space to strip this status from hundreds of thousands of more people.
Read the full NPR article here: https://www.npr.org/2026/06/29/g-s1-130942/temporary-protected-status-program-explainer-supreme-court
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Trafficking & Migration