Temporary Protected Status for more than 300,000 Haitian nationals has officially ended this week, capping a prolonged legal fight and triggering fear in Haitian communities from Florida to Ohio to Massachusetts, according to CBS News and CNN. The Trump administration terminated the decades-old program after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the move and a lower court judge took the final legal step to make it official, CNN reported.
The end of Haitian TPS strips work authorization and deportation protection from people who, in many cases, have lived in the United States for years or even decades. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had already made plans to ramp up arrests and deportations of Haitian migrants just ahead of the program's expiration, according to two ICE sources and federal documents obtained by CBS News.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin confirmed that operations targeting former Haitian TPS holders were underway. "We're going after them right now. ... These individuals can either self-deport, or we will arrest you and send you back. It's that simple," he told NewsNation, as reported by CNN. Two sources with knowledge of the operations told CNN that enforcement against former TPS holders, including Haitians, intensified in late July and is expected to continue.
A Pregnant Woman in Hiding in Florida
In Florida, home to some of the largest Haitian communities in the country, a 29-year-old pregnant woman told CBS News she is in hiding, fearing she could be deported at any moment. CBS News did not name her. She said she came to the United States at age 6 and has no family remaining in Haiti.
"I wouldn't have anywhere to go," she said when asked what would happen if she were sent back. She told CBS News that losing her TPS status also cost her her job, and her health insurance is set to expire soon. Her pregnancy is high-risk and requires weekly medical appointments she says she can no longer afford. Her partner is a U.S. citizen, meaning their child will be an American citizen regardless of where the baby is born.
"Yes, I do feel like I'm American," she told CBS News. "I've been in this country most of my life. This is the home that I know." CBS News described Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood as largely deserted, with once-busy streets now empty as residents avoid public spaces. The woman said she only leaves home for necessary doctor's visits, and that she may soon stop doing even that.
Arrests, Ankle Monitors and Empty Cars
CNN reported that fear has spread well beyond Florida. In Boston, a nurse who is no longer permitted to work at one of the city's top hospitals has been staying inside her home, worried that ICE could be nearby. In Springfield, Ohio, a mother sent a panicked text to a friend saying her daughter was "completely traumatized." And in eastern Maryland, residents reported finding cars abandoned at gas stations with their engines still running, according to CNN.
Dr. Marie D. Fouché, founder and executive director of Safe Harbor Circles, an immigrant support organization in Salisbury, Maryland, told CNN that arrests have been happening in public. "They've been arresting people left and right — some people in the middle of the streets. ... We have people who went to the grocery store to cook for their kids and didn't return home," she said.
Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, told CNN that at least five people contacted her organization last week to report detained loved ones, with arrests occurring in Arizona, California, Indiana and Maryland. She said many of those detained were former TPS holders who were simply driving when they encountered ICE. "The fear is that the numbers will increase. Enforcement always happens, even when we don't hear it on the news. It is happening on a daily basis within the community," Jozef said.
Federal authorities have not released data on how many Haitians have been detained since TPS ended, and advocates who track deportation flights told CNN they had not logged any flights bound for Haiti in the two weeks prior to Saturday.
Springfield, Ohio, drew national attention after President Trump made unfounded claims during a 2024 campaign debate that Haitians there were eating pets. The city is home to roughly 15,000 Haitian residents. Vilès Dorsainvil, co-founder and executive director of the Haitian Community Help and Support Center in Springfield, told CNN that while a feared surge in ICE arrests has not yet materialized there, hundreds of Department of Homeland Security letters instructing recipients to report to immigration offices have unsettled the community.
Dorsainvil said those who report to ICE offices after receiving the letters have been fitted with ankle monitors and given court dates roughly a month out. He told CNN the monitors are part of an ICE program known as "alternatives to detention," but that for many Haitians the devices carry a painful resonance tied to the history of shackles used during slavery. Marjory Wentworth, a board member of the Springfield center who also works with the faith-based group G92, described a text from a friend whose teenage daughter fears ICE will detain her father. "It's terrifying... the emotional and psychological stress on these individuals and these families," Wentworth told CNN.
Asked about the letters and monitors, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told CNN that TPS was always meant to be temporary and pointed to the administration's self-deportation program, which offers stipends to people who leave voluntarily. "What we would say now is it's closing time which means you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here," the spokesperson said. "The good news is it's not too late to get a $2,600 check and a free flight home."
The administration has justified ending Haitian TPS by citing improved conditions in Haiti. But the State Department maintains a Level 4 travel advisory warning Americans against traveling there, and a United Nations report cited by CBS News found 613 gang-related killings in Haiti between March and July, along with a suspension of basic services in gang-affected neighborhoods. A Boston nurse told CNN that returning is not an option for her or many others who fled after the 2010 earthquake, only to watch gang violence engulf the country in the years since. "There are no jobs. Most of the hospitals are taken over by gangs or have been destroyed, and ... the economy's not good," she said.
