For the second time in less than a year, Haitians living in the U.S. are facing possible deportation.
Advocacy groups say they should retain Temporary Protection Status as it is still too dangerous for them to return to Haiti.
Last July, when it appeared TPS would terminate in September, it was estimated that 5,000 Haitians lived in Southwest Florida.
According to ZIPAtlas, Lehigh Acres has 5,959 immigrants from Haiti, Fort Myers has 2,648 and Cape Coral has 504.
Current conditions were shared during a press conference Tuesday to depict what those with Temporary Protection Status would face if they were forced to return.
National Haitian Elected Officials Network Chair Vanessa Joseph said the conference call was called as it is a critical moment for Haitian families and children.
“We are here today in response to a significant and urgent development. On Wednesday, March 11, at the Department of Homeland Security filed an emergency appeal with the United States Supreme Court seeking to terminate the Temporary Protection Status — TPS — for Haiti,” she said. “This comes at a time when conditions in Haiti continue to deteriorate, especially for children who are facing escalating violence, amid access to education and severe humanitarian instability,” she said.
Sant La, the Haitian Neighborhood Center, Executive Director Thamara Labrousse said the reality is the people most affected by the decision are families, workers, parents, and children who have spent years contributing to their communities while living with uncertainty about their future.
“Behind legal argument are real lives,” she said. “Often these lives are reduced to statistics or filtered through advocacy talking points.”
Labrousse said the heart of the issue are the children and families and 350,000 TPS holders.
According to a January 2026 Haitian TPS holders fact sheet, there were 158,000 TPS holders in Florida – far more than the seven other states highlighted. Of that number, 93,000 are Haitian TPS workforce – cooks and servers, agricultural workers, stockers and packers, security guards and nursing assistants.
The sheet states that TPS holders contributed an estimated $2.6 billion in annual economic contributions in Florida, $300 million in annual federal and payroll taxes and $306 million in annual state and local taxes.
Furthermore, according to Haiti TPS Fact Sheet, 50,000 U.S. citizen children depend on their Haitian TPS parent.
“Some of these children were born in the United States and are American citizens,” Labrousse said, while others have arrived at an early age and have grown up in American schools and communities. “For many of them the United States is the only home – their future is now hanging in the balance.”
She said if TPS were to be taken from them, families are faced with impossible choices – separate from loved ones or return to a country that is facing extraordinary humanitarian security challenges.
“We know what happens when there is family separation. Most will probably choose to leave their children in the United States,” Florida Immigrant Coalition Executive Director Tessa Petit said. “Separation creates immense emotional trauma and leads to children ending up in the foster care system.”
Petit said in addition, there are more than 80,000 children who are on TPS themselves and would have to return to Haiti for unbelievable, unbearable, and extremely dangerous conditions.
“We need the world to know that when the Department of Homeland Security decided to end TPS for Haiti they decided it based on an arbitrary decision and we have seen the courts, multiple times, say it was unlawful,” she said. “We need America to hear the truth about what is happening to Haiti and risk to our children.
Labrousse said the United Nations and other international observers have warned about the rapidly deteriorating situation in Haiti, particularly for children.
“Teachers report students struggling to concentrate in class, some are acting out, others are expressing their stress through headaches, stomachache and anxiety. These are young American citizens who are absorbing the fear and uncertainty their families are dealing with every single day,” she said.
William O’Neill, United Nations High Commissioner’s Designated Expert on Human Rights in Haiti, said he was recently in Haiti for eight days.
“The human rights situation in Haiti, in my mind, is still catastrophic,” he said whether it be the right to life, freedom, to movement and expression and all the basic human rights such as food, clean water, access to healthcare, education and shelter. “My official position — no one should be deported to Haiti from anywhere.”
O’Neill also talked about the people who are displaced, internal refugees in Haiti, that were forced to flee their homes because of violence and insecurity. He said that number is up to about 1.5 million – the highest percentage of a population in the world.
Dave Fils-Aime, founder and executive director of Basketbol pou Ankadre Lajenes (BAL), said the children in Port-au-Prince have not had a full school year since 2018. He said in 2018 a series of protest caused schools not to function for multiple days and weeks at a time.
Fils-Aime said in 2020 was the pandemic and in 2021 the president was assassinated. He said after this, gangs spread and people started leaving their neighborhoods because of the situation.
“Since 2018, about eight years, haven’t had a full regular school year,” Fils-Aime said.
The Zoom press conference also highlighted the living situation for young women and girls.
Kindarlie Pierre, Domestic Violence Prevention Advocate, Association of Haitian Women in Boston, said she works with women who tell them about how bad things are – gang violence, which is in Port-au-Prince where gangs control neighborhoods.
“Women and girls are the most vulnerable,” Pierre said.
Haitian American Community Coalition of SWFL, which expressed concern last fall, could not be reached for comment.
To reach MEGHAN BRADBURY, please email news@breezenewspapers.com