New York – A federal judge in New York blocked Tuesday to the Trump administration to end the temporal legal status for more than 500,000 Haitians who are already in the United States.
The Judge of the Brian M. Cogan District Court in New York ruled that assuming the expiration of the temporary protected state, or TPS, for at least five months for Haitians, some of whom have lived in the United States for more than a decade, is illegal.
The Biden administration had extended the state of TPS of Haiti until at least on February 3, 2026, due to the violence of gangs, political disturbances, an important earthquake in 2021 and several other factors, according to judicial documents.
But last week, the National Security Department announced that these legal protections would end as soon as September 2, which prepares Haitians for possible deportation. The department said the conditions in the country had improved and the Haitians no longer meet the conditions for temporal legal protections.
The ruling occurs when President Donald Trump works to end the protections and programs for immigrants as part of his mass promises.
The opinion of the 23 -page judge establishes that the movement of the National Security Department to terminate the Legal Protections early violates the TPS Statute that requires a certain amount of notice before reconsidering a designation.
“When the government confers a benefit for a fixed period of time, a beneficiary can reasonably wait for that benefit to the end of that fixed period,” according to the ruling.
The judge also referred to the fact that the plaintiffs have begun jobs, have registered in schools and began to receive medical treatment with the expectations that the country’s designation would be extended until the end of the year.
Manny Pastreich, president of the International Union of Local Service Employees 32BJ, which filed the demand, described the ruling as an “important step”, but said the fight is not over.
“We will continue to fight to ensure that this decision is confirmed,” said Pastreich in a statement. “We will continue to fight for the rights of our members and all immigrants against the Trump administration, in the streets, in the workplace and also in the courts. And when we fight, we win.”
The DHS did not immediately respond to an email by Associated Press requesting comments. But the government had argued that TPS is a temporary program and, therefore, “the termination of a country’s designation is a possibility that beneficiaries should always wait.”
The Haiti TPS status was initially activated in 2010 after the catastrophic earthquake and has spread several times, according to the demand.
The violence of the gangs has displaced 1.3 million people throughout Haiti such as the local government and the international community fight with the spiral crisis, according to a report by the International Organization for Migration. There has been a 24% increase in displaced people since December, and armed men have pursued 11% of the almost 12 million inhabitants of Haiti from home, according to the report.
In May, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to strip the temporary protected status of 350,000 Venezuelans, which potentially exposed them to deportation. The order waiting for a federal judge in San Francisco who maintained legal protections in his place.
The judge’s decision in New York also immediately comes immediately from the Trump administration that revokes the legal protections for thousands of Haitians who legally arrived in the United States through a humanitarian probation program.
