Overview:
Haitian advocates, lawmakers and community organizations are mounting a nationwide push to extend Temporary Protected Status for Haitian immigrants as the program faces possible termination next week. The mobilization includes a letter-writing campaign, congressional briefings, public media forums, coalition statements and legal challenges — with advocates warning that ending TPS would destabilize families, harm the U.S. economy and deepen Haiti’s humanitarian crisis.
Haitian elected officials, immigration advocates and community organizations across the United States are mobilizing in an urgent push to pressure the Trump administration to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians, as the clock winds down on the 10-year-old legal immigration designation that authorizes hundreds of thousands of Haitians to live and work in the United States.
From high-level congressional briefings and coalition statements to letter-writing campaigns and community outreach, Haitian community members, their allies, and proponents of the program have entered a final, high-stakes stretch aim to reverse course on ending TPS as the Feb. 3 expiration date approaches.
“Ending TPS under these conditions is deliberate harm,” said Farah Larrieux, chairperson of the Association of Miramar Haitian American Residents and Business Owners and a TPS recipient based in Florida.
“Haitian TPS holders are essential workers, business owners, and parents of U.S.-born children who followed the rules,” she said.
A man carries a Haitian flag during a rally in support of the extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian immigrants before it expires on February 3, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
TPS is a federal immigration designation that allows people from countries facing war, natural disaster or other extraordinary conditions to live and work legally in the United States for limited periods. Haiti received TPS after the 2010 earthquake, and the protection has been renewed several times since. Last November, the Trump administration announced it would let Haiti’s current TPS designation expire in February.
As the weekend approaches, advocates, lawmakers and Haitian community leaders have intensified calls for an extension, organizing rallies, outreach campaigns and direct appeals from prominent individuals to Congress and the White House.
Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida outlined what she called a multi-front effort to delay the termination through court action, legislation and public pressure. Speaking Friday during a Congressional Black Caucus call focused on Haiti TPS, she said members of Congress are backing multiple legal challenges aimed at blocking the decision.
“Our goal right now is to delay by whatever means possible,” Cherfilus-McCormick said. She warned that ending TPS would amount to “economic sabotage,” pointing to the billions of dollars TPS holders contribute to the U.S. economy and their heavy presence in health care, construction and hospitality jobs.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts tied the TPS fight to broader immigration and racial justice concerns, arguing that enforcement patterns disproportionately affect Black immigrants.
“These operations are rooted in anti-Blackness and xenophobia,” Pressley said, linking the TPS decision to wider immigration enforcement policy. “The fight against ICE and the fight to extend TPS are truly two sides of the same evil white supremacist coin.”
Pressley said she has introduced a discharge petition aimed at forcing a House vote on extending TPS and urged lawmakers in both parties to support it.
“We’re going to fight like hell like you’re family, because you are,” she said, referring to Haitian communities across Massachusetts, Florida, New York, Ohio and other states.
At the local level, public education efforts are also expanding. In South Florida, home to hundreds of thousands of Haitians, public radio station WLRN organized a live broadcast from the Little Haiti Cultural Complex focused on the TPS decision.
Advocacy organizations have issued sharp condemnations of the planned termination. A coalition of Haitian groups and allies called the move reckless and discriminatory, arguing that conditions in Haiti — including political collapse, gang control of neighborhoods and widespread insecurity — clearly meet the legal standard for TPS protection.
Tessa Petit, the Director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC), argues that Haitian immigrants do not pose a threat to the United States and instead bring an economic benefit to the nation.
“These arguments do not stand when you think of national interest,” Petit said. “National interest means that a group of people needs to represent an economic or violent threat to the United States, which Haitians on TPS do not. Every aspect of the argument they are using is flawed and unjustified.”
Legal and economic stakes
Approximately 500,000 Haitians currently hold TPS, many of them living in the United States for more than a decade. If protections lapse, they would lose work authorization and become subject to deportation, a shift advocates say would destabilize families and strain major sectors of the U.S. economy, including health care, home care, hospitality and construction.
Earlier in the week, New York Attorney General Letitia James said her office has joined multistate legal efforts to challenge the termination, citing both humanitarian and economic risks. She said Haitian immigrants are deeply embedded in state and local workforces and contribute billions of dollars each year.
Beyond domestic impacts, advocates argue that mass returns to Haiti would further destabilize the country, exposing deportees to kidnapping, extortion, and violence, while strengthening armed groups amid the power vacuum.
The advocacy group Institute for Democracy and Justice in Haiti, IJDH, is also circulating an emergency call to action urging supporters to help block the termination through lawsuits and congressional pressure. The appeal asks people to call the White House switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and urge their representative to co-sponsor House Resolution 965 to extend TPS for Haitians, while pointing to an active federal lawsuit — Miot v. Trump — that seeks a court injunction to stop the cutoff.
As mobilization continues through the weekend, organizers are urging supporters to attend public events, share media coverage, contact elected officials, and amplify Haitian voices calling for immediate extension and long-term protection.
“This moment is about more than immigration policy,” one organizer said. “It’s about whether the United States will acknowledge reality—and the humanity of the Haitian community.”
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