A federal judge in Washington, D.C. temporarily blocked the Trump administration from terminating temporary protected status or TPS for hundreds of thousands of Haitians nationally — including about 19,000 in Massachusetts.
In a lawsuit brought by Haitian TPS holders, Judge Ana Reyes granted plaintiffs’ renewed motion to stay the government’s termination pending further judicial review.
“During the stay, the Termination shall be null, void, and of no legal effect,” she wrote. “The Termination therefore does not affect the protections and benefits previously conferred by the TPS designation, including work authorization and protection from detention and deportation, and the valid period of work authorization extends during the stay.”
Reyes’s 83-page opinion begins by comparing the actions of President Donald Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, who announced her plan to terminate the program for Haitians last year, to the words of George Washington.
“America is open to receive not only the Opulent & respected Stranger, but the oppressed & persecuted of all Nations & Religions,” wrote Reyes, quoting a 1783 letter from Washington when he was Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. Reyes continued that more than two centuries later, Congress “reaffirmed his vision” by creating TPS in 1990 for foreign nationals coming to the US from disaster stricken countries.
“Noem has a different take,” Reyes wrote, including in her decision a social media post from Noem.
“One of those (her word) 'damn’ countries is Haiti,” wrote Reyes.
“Plaintiffs charge that Secretary Noem preordained her termination decision and did so because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants. This seems substantially likely,” wrote Reyes, who added that Noem ignored rules to consult other agencies on her decision.
Reyes said federal statute allows some discretion to the Secretary of Homeland Security, but not “unbounded discretion,” as lawyers for the Trump administration had contended. In issuing her decision, Reyes also rejected the administration’s motion to dismiss the case.
“Supreme Court, here we come. This is lawless activism that we will be vindicated on,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in an email.
“Haiti’s TPS was granted following an earthquake that took place over 15 years ago, it was never intended to be a de facto amnesty program, yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades. Temporary means temporary and the final word will not be from an activist judge legislating from the bench.”
Haiti’s temporary protected status designation was slated to end at 11:59pm on Tuesday, triggering fear that hundreds of thousands of people would become undocumented and lose their work permits and jobs.
The government designates certain countries for temporary protected status if the country suffers violence or political upheaval. The status allows qualifying immigrants to live in the US for up to 18 months, with the ability to work and with the right to try to renew their status.
The Department of Homeland Security has voided designations for at least 10 countries under the second Trump administration.
“This was the right decision. There is no evidence that the Trump administration took the time to make a clear-eyed assessment of the risks these families would face back in Haiti before moving to revoke TPS,” said Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. “On the contrary, the revocation appears to have been driven by racial animus and political ideology.”
The ruling comes as a relief to Massachusetts Haitians. Greater Boston has the nation’s third-largest Haitian population, according to World Population Review’s 2023 data. A large percentage of the state’s Haitians have TPS, and work in health care and food services, filling key jobs in those fields.
Anxiety has been high in the community, with some people already sheltering in their homes out of fear of being detained by ICE, and others nervous about losing employment.
Dr. Geralde Gabeau leads the Immigrant Family Services Institute in Mattapan and says the Haitian immigrants she works with had been waiting “all day” for Judge Reyes’ decision.
“It is such a huge relief. A lot of employees received the news that by [Tuesday] they’d need to present a form of work authorization. If not, they were going to be let go,” she said. “That’s the big relief, because at least by tomorrow a number of people can go with that decision and show [it] to their employers.”
Gov. Maura Healey said the ruling protects against a “harmful disruption to the Massachusetts’ economy, as Haitian TPS holders are an integral part of our workforce, particularly in the health care sector.
“If President Trump had his way, thousands of nurses, home health aides, and other essential employees would not have been able to work tomorrow, and patients and families who are dependent on caregivers would have suffered. We are notifying employers across the state that their employees are still eligible to work,” she said.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs lauded the ruling. “Haiti remains an extraordinarily dangerous place, marked by widespread gang violence, rampant disease, lack of access to clean drinking water, severe housing instability, and the absence of a functioning government,” wrote attorneys at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, the firm handling the case.
“This ruling recognizes the grave risks Haitian TPS holders would face if forced to return [to Haiti], and it ensures that they can remain here in the United States — as legislated by Congress — to continue their lives, contributing to their communities, and supporting their families,” they wrote.
