The Trump administration is putting an end to Haiti’s temporary protected status designation, dealing yet another devastating blow to roughly a half-million Haitian nationals, some of whom have lived in the United States for more than a decade.

The Department of Homeland Security said on Friday that conditions in Haiti have improved, and Haitians no longer meet the conditions for temporary protected status, which grants deportation protections and work permits to people from countries experiencing turmoil. Although the current TPS designation will end on Aug. 3, the termination itself will officially take effect on Tuesday, Sept. 2.

“This decision restores integrity in our immigration system and ensures that Temporary Protective Status is actually temporary,” a DHS spokesperson said. “The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home.”

It is unclear how DHS, in consultation with the State Department, reached such a conclusion. Currently the State Department warns Americans not to travel to Haiti “due to kidnapping, crime, civil unrest and limited health care.” This week, the agency also urged U.S. citizens to “depart Haiti as soon as possible” or “be prepared to shelter in place for an extended time period.”

And just on Thursday, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau questioned the lack of action at the Organization of American States to address the crisis in Haiti.

“Armed gangs control the streets and ports of the capital city, and public order there has all but collapsed,” he said. “While Haiti descends into chaos, the unfolding humanitarian, security and governance crisis reverberates across the region.”

The Miami Herald reached out to the State Department, asking the agency to explain its recommendations.

Friday’s decision, while fulfilling a campaign promise from the president, puts more than a half-million Haitians at risk of being deported back to a gang-ridden country that hasn’t seen an election in nine years and where schools, hospitals and private homes regularly go up in flames.

Haiti is undergoing one of its worst periods of instability in recent history following the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

With at least one in 10 Haitians in the Caribbean country displaced by deadly gang violence, anyone deported risks returning to a place where they have no home to go to because their neighborhoods have been overtaken by armed criminal groups, who are now in control of up to 90% of Port-au-Prince, and spreading to neighboring areas. They extract tolls for use of the capital’s main highways and roads and the violence has displaced around 1.3 million people, according to estimates by the United Nations’ International Organization of Migration.

In its latest report on the country’s deteriorating situation, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the fresh wave of armed attacks that began on March 31 has made an already dire situation worse, one in which 5.7 million people — nearly half the population — face acute hunger.

There is also limited access to basic social services and education for children, the U.N. agency said, noting that as of April 30, more than 1,600 additional schools had closed. The number represents a 60% increase since the beginning of the year.

Critics of the administration’s decision to end TPS say it is motivated by racism against Haitians.

“Even those of us who served in Haiti (did 2 tours) can’t start to imagine the hell it is now,” said Luis Moreno, a former head of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Haiti under President George W. Bush, in a post in X. “Ruled by gangs, airports closed, rampant starvation closing in, and a totally failed state. ‘Conditions have improved,’ is a total fabrication. We know what this is — blatant racism.”

Amnesty International called the decision “cruel and dangerous, and a continuation of President Trump’s racist and anti-immigrant practices.”

On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump promised to deport Haitians as he falsely accused them of eating their neighbors’ pets in Springfield, Ohio. Since returning to the office, he has focused on dismantling the Biden administration’s immigration protections for migrants. In doing so, he’s been testing his presidential powers by using archaic and seldom-enforced immigration laws to pursue his promise of mass deportations.

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal judge’s order preventing the administration from revoking a humanitarian parole program — for now — as the merits of the case are litigated in the courts. The program was put in place by the Biden administration for more than 500,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, and the Supreme Court’s decision made many migrants undocumented overnight while sparing those who were still protected by TPS.

TPS allows people already in the United States to live and work legally because their homeland is deemed unsafe because of natural disasters or civil strife. Haiti, which is undergoing a complex security, humanitarian and economic crisis, was given the designation after its devastating Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake and has enjoyed several renewals and 18-month extensions.

The latest designation was granted by President Joe Biden and extended to February 2026 before he left office. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem revoked the decision and rolled back the new end date to Aug. 3. The new date meant that the administration had to decide within 60 days of the benefit’s end whether it would be extended, renewed or permanently terminated.

The Haiti decision follows a similar decision for Afghans, who were recently told they would lose the designation, as well as an estimated 350,000 Venezuelans.

In 2017, Trump tried ending TPS for Haiti and a handful of other countries, but the process was successfully challenged in federal court. Trump’s latest decision is also sure to be challenged, said lawyers challenging Trump’s decision to roll back TPS for Haitians in a federal lawsuit in New York.

“The consistent pattern of illegal and racist treatment by this administration against Haitians is unsurprising,” said Miami-based immigration lawyer Ira Kurzban. “We will continue the legal fight against their discrimination. But mass deportations of Haitians and others must be met by massive, peaceful demonstrations in the streets of Miami and elsewhere. Hopefully Haitian, Venezuelans, Cubans and Nicaraguans in Miami will unite to stop the denigration of hard-working immigrants who make up 54.3% of Miami-Dade County. Trump’s promise was to get rid of violent criminals, not 1.5 million law-abiding immigrants who contribute to our community.”

The TPS termination comes at a time when the situation in Haiti is getting worse, and gangs are closer to fully controlling the capital.

In the first months of this year gangs set fire to car dealerships and private homes; charged exorbitant tolls to transporters delivering food and fuel, including to drivers delivering fuel to the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, and attacked diplomatic vehicles, including those used by the U.S. Embassy.

Haitian authorities have tried to respond with a task force using weaponized drones and mercenaries connected to Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater. But recent operations targeting high-profile gang leaders have not led to any breakthroughs and instead raised concerns at the U.N., the Caribbean Community and elsewhere about collateral damage and human-rights abuses. So far, Haitian police have not produced any evidence to back up claims they’ve killed hundreds of gang members in the drone attacks.

A U.N. panel of experts said this week the gangs ramped up attacks and went after “the last free bastions of the capital, including Petion-Ville and Kenscoff.” Gangs not only continue to procure weapons despite a global U.N. arms embargo but they also acquired military grade .50 caliber guns and ammunition, they noted.

Efforts to restore security and political stability, including through a Multinational Security Support mission led by Kenya, continue to fall short, they acknowledged, as gangs continue to exploit the political turmoil and the disorganized response to the security crisis.

The U.N. panel also warned about the rise of vigilantism, an increase in the number of mob lynchings, and extrajudicial killings by local police officers.

“The horrendous human rights violations and abuses in Haiti make it unsafe to return. The gangs control huge swathes of territory and all the major roads leading into the capital,” William O’Neill, the U.N.’s independent human rights expert on Haiti, told the Herald.

“Killings, kidnappings and sexual violence have all increased over the past four years. Access to health care and basic services is non-existent for millions of Haitians. Schools barely function, hunger is rampant and infectious diseases threaten millions,” he said. “I urge all countries to suspend forced deportations of Haitians.”

In Cap-Haïtien, where most police officers lack vehicles to patrol and deter gun trafficking from South Florida, the effects of an increase in deportations from the U.S and the Dominican Republic can be spotted on the crowded roads and streets covered in trash.

The U.S. has sent at least five deportation flights to Haiti since the beginning of the year, while the neighboring Dominican Republic has expelled more than 139,000 Haitians since January.

©2025 Miami Herald. Visit at miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.