February 21, 2025
Trump revokes protected status for Haitians, sparking fear in Mass. communities
BY MassLive
Dieufort Fleurissaint, affectionately known as “Pastor Keke,” hasn’t been able to return all the calls that began inundating his phone Thursday afternoon.
Most are pleas for guidance plagued by uncertainty.
“It’s widespread fear, hopelessness, discouragement, devastation,” Fleurissaint, a leader in the Boston Haitian community, said in an interview.
He knows home health aides, nurses, teachers, business owners and MBTA drivers who will all be affected by the latest move of the Trump administration — to rescind Temporary Protected Status for more than half a million Haitians across the country.
In Massachusetts, the shock wave was acutely felt: the commonwealth is home to the second-largest Haitian population in the nation, second to Florida.
Despite the anxiety that descended with Thursday’s announcement, Fleurissaint’s immediate message was an uplifting one, for his Haitian community and all other citizens.
Under the new Trump administration policy, as of Aug. 3, Haitian TPS holders will lose legal authorization to live and work in the U.S. and will have to apply for other protections, such as asylum, in order to avoid deportation. This will likely flood the country’s immigration court system, which currently has a backlog of 3.7 million cases, with hundreds of thousands of new cases.
“We are returning integrity to the TPS system, which has been abused and exploited by illegal aliens for decades,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement. “President Trump and Secretary Noem are returning TPS to its original status: temporary.”
The end of TPS for Haitians comes after Trump already did the same for 607,000 Venezuelans. Two separate lawsuits have since been filed challenging the end of TPS for Venezuelans and could pave the way for similar legal actions by the Haitian community.
While no lawsuits have yet been filed in response to the revocation of TPS for Haitians, advocates told MassLive Friday that they are watching the situation closely.
“One of the highest ideals of American society has been to provide a haven for people fleeing persecution and chaos around the world — and for this reason, Temporary Protected Status is essential,” said Jessie Rossman, legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts. “Immigrants living and working in our state, and throughout our country, make invaluable contributions to our society, our culture, and our economy … Severing those links and threatening thousands of people with deportation — especially to a place in significant crisis — is cruel, senseless, and short-sighted.”
According to U.S. Census data, Massachusetts has more than 80,000 Haitian residents. The majority are concentrated in Boston, Brockton, Randolph, Malden and Everett.
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-7th District, has previously said more than 4,700 Haitians living in the commonwealth are TPS holders.
What is temporary protected status?
TPS can be designated for countries where armed conflict, environmental disasters or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions” would prevent the country’s nationals from returning there from the United States, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Seventeen countries are currently TPS-designated, though the Trump administration appears to be ending it country by country.
Haiti was first designated for TPS in 2010 when the Caribbean country was devastated by an earthquake. It has since been extended due to gang violence in the country and the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
Since March 2024, the U.S. Department of State has had a travel advisory warning residents not to travel to Haiti due to “kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and limited health care.”
Under former President Joe Biden, Haitian TPS was extended through February 2026, but the Trump administration’s announcement Thursday rescinded the extension, giving Haitian immigrants only until Aug. 3.
“If anything, conditions in Haiti have worsened since its original designation as a TPS-protected country,” said Oren Sellstrom, litigation director at Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights. “Haiti faces overlapping humanitarian challenges, including intense violence, political insecurity, and lack of access to safety, health care, food, and water. TPS is a crucial lifeline for families throughout Massachusetts. The abrupt revocation of this humanitarian program would cause untold harm and has no basis in law.”
Haitians in Boston
In a statement Thursday night, Boston City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune, the daughter of Haitian immigrants and the first Haitian-American elected to the council, said Haitians in the U.S. have escaped “unspeakable and unrelenting fear” in their native country that remains stricken by violence and unstable politics.
“Now is not the time to cower,” Louijeune said. “It is the time to defend our neighbors and reject the xenophobia and fear-mongering that Trump uses as weapons to hide his failures to deliver for the American people.”
A 2017 report released under former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh on the city’s Haitian community — those who were born in Haiti and those who identify as Haitian — said Haitians living in Boston at the time held 12,219 jobs and owned approximately 455 businesses, earning $511 million in income that year.
They contributed $26 million in state income taxes and $8.4 million in state sales taxes in 2017. Twenty-eight percent worked in health care support, personal care and protective services at that time, according to Census data.
Elizabeth Sweet, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said states increasingly depend on “dedicated immigrant workers” as they grapple with a severe workforce shortage. Eliminating the opportunity for Haitians to work in states like Massachusetts, she said, will cause “even more long-term harm.”
In Western Massachusetts
Trump’s decision to end TPS will “strike panic for the Haitians in our community,” said Laurie Millman, director of Center for New Americans in Northampton.
For many with TPS, the U.S. is not the first country they came to in order to escape their uninhabitable homelands, said Millman, which might have faced natural disasters, extreme violence or political turmoil.
While TPS is not the pathway to receive citizenship, Millman said Haitians with legal protection arrived in the U.S. legally and have work authorizations that help them fill long-vacant positions in the community, like nursing assistant and restaurant worker roles.
“Who will do those jobs now?” she said. “Ending TPS will hurt us as much as it will hurt them.”
Her organization has been working with local and state organizations and agencies to figure out what to do in the meantime. The order leaves organizations in Massachusetts about six months to strategize on how to proceed.
“We can start applying for asylum or look into other pathways for protection,” said Millman.
Rabbi James Greene, CEO of the Jewish Family Services of Western Massachusetts, said his organization has helped over 750 Haitian clients in the last year find housing and jobs in the Pioneer Valley.
It has also been offering English classes to Haitian immigrants and their families at American International College in Springfield, according to Denise Vozella, the college’s spokesperson.
Tens of hundreds of Haitians, he explained, will be affected by this decision.
“For this administration to rip away stability and security from half a million people (in the U.S.), they are intending to spread panic,” Greene said. “These immigrants have come here through the right ways, have taken jobs, their children attend schools in our area and they are contributing to a vibrant life here.”
Greene said clients have contacted him about their concerns.
“People are worried about their families and their children,” he said. “(This decision) strips people of their legal status and forces families into the shadows, making them extremely vulnerable.”
Sara Horatius, a racial justice fellow and immigration attorney at Central West Justice Center, a legal aid and immigration service with offices stretching from Pittsfield to Worcester, said close to all of her clients — more than 30 in all — are Haitian immigrants.
The center helps migrants who are low-income and often live in shelters. The announcement will be tough for her clients, Horatius said.
“TPS allows people to work (here) and is usually extended every 18 months, but losing it means a lot of people will be in limbo,” she said.
And, even if people are eligible for asylum, not all can attain it, she added. “Some people can’t afford the expense of hiring a private attorney who can help them get asylum,” she said.
Central West Justice Center represents clients pro bono, or free of charge, but does not take on all asylum cases, she said.
While there are exceptions, Horatius explained that most people need to apply for asylum within their first year of arriving in the U.S. The process is long, complicated and arduous, which is why most people apply for TPS first.
More immigrants will be trying to get asylum following this announcement, Horatius said, which could leave many who don’t understand the system vulnerable to fraud.
The Biden administration, in 2023, offered a humanitarian parole program to some residents from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who passed a background check and had a sponsor to enter the U.S. for two years to live and work. Horatius explained that some of her family members were offered those pathways and are now uncertain about next steps.
“Even before this announcement, when Trump became the president, people have been worried about what will happen to them,” she said.