The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 25 decision to support ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian and Syrian nationals will affect thousands in New York City.
TPS allows people from unsafe countries to live and work legally in the U.S. Haiti’s TPS was first granted after the 2010 earthquake and has been extended multiple times.
The ruling affects between 330,000 and 350,000 Haitian TPS holders in the U.S. The immigration policy group FWD.us estimated that about 40,000 Haitian TPS holders live in New York State, with 25,000 in the workforce. FWD.us said Haitian TPS holders contribute $863 million annually to New York’s economy.
The Trump administration has argued that TPS was only meant to be temporary. Supporters of the Haitian community counter that the word “temporary” means it should cover ongoing dangerous conditions in Haiti. At the Supreme Court, dissenters against the ruling were Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. They wrote that Haitian and Syrian TPS beneficiaries “ask for only one thing: that they may stay in this country while they continue to litigate their claims … [T]hey are entitled to that relief, and should not instead be consigned to devastating, and indeed life-threatening, injury.”
“The Supreme Court has recklessly rubber-stamped the Trump administration’s crusade to rip legal status from hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian TPS holders, forcing them to return to a dangerous and deeply unstable environment where they know people are at risk,” Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who represents parts of Brooklyn, said in a statement. “TPS holders from Haiti and Syria are our hardworking neighbors actively contributing to our communities, supporting our small businesses[,] and filling critical labor needs.”
New Jersey Rep. Analilia Mejia also condemned the decision. “Today’s decisions handed the Trump administration sweeping new power to strip away constitutional protections and throw hundreds of thousands of lives into uncertainty,” she said. “Whether denying asylum seekers the chance to be heard or ripping Temporary Protected Status away from families who have spent years building their lives in this country, this corrupt court, beholden to an authoritarian-like president, once again chose politics over the Constitution.”
Advocates say the SCOTUS decision will be felt deeply in New York’s Haitian immigrant neighborhoods where they have built churches, businesses, and care networks. It could also hit New York’s healthcare system: The nonprofit newsroom Documented reported that more than 112,000 Haitians work in healthcare nationwide, and 1199SEIU warned that thousands of New York City frontline healthcare workers could face immediate deportation or lose their work authorizations.
