This story is developing and will be updated.<\/p>\n
On Monday, a judge rejected the Trump administration\u2019s attempt to end the temporary protected immigration status of hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in America. The government\u2019s move would have cleared the way for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to begin mass deportations of people from the island nation.<\/p>\n
In a scathing 83-page ruling issued Monday evening, U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes sided with a group of five young Haitian adults who sued the government, claiming officials sought to end temporary protected status for them without adequately determining whether conditions had improved in Haiti, which is wracked with political and economic instability, along with gang violence.<\/p>\n
The judge\u2019s ruling had harsh words for President Donald Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Reyes said that it was likely that Noem had predetermined to end the protected status for Haitians \u201cbecause of hostility to nonwhite immigrants.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe record strongly suggests that Secretary Noem\u2019s decision to terminate Haiti\u2019s TPS designation was motivated, at least in part, by racial animus,\u201d Reyes wrote.<\/p>\n
In Reyes\u2019 analysis, she said Noem failed to account for the $1.3 billion that Haitian TPS holders pay in taxes every year. She also outlined Trump\u2019s previous statements denigrating Haiti and suggesting that Haitian immigrants \u201cprobably have AIDS.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Haitians in places like South Florida and Western Ohio celebrated the decision Monday, others expressed fears that ICE would come in and occupy their cities anyway.<\/p>\n
The ruling affects an estimated 350,000 Haitians here on temporary protected status, a program that allows immigrants to live and work in the United States legally due to conditions like natural disasters or ongoing armed conflict in their home countries. In recent months, federal officials have also sought to end temporary protected status for immigrants from countries such as Venezuela, Ethiopia, Honduras, Nepal and Somalia.<\/p>\n
Reyes\u2019 decision in favor of the Haitian plaintiffs is the latest example of federal judges castigating Trump\u2019s immigration practices in cases<\/a> around the country.<\/p>\n At least for now, the decision stops Trump from fulfilling a campaign promise he made in 2024 to end temporary protected status for Haitians, after Vice President JD Vance spread false claims that Haitian immigrants were eating the pets of residents in Springfield, Ohio.<\/p>\n In an interview with NewsNation during his presidential campaign, Trump said that his stance had nothing to do with the fact that the immigrants were Haitian, but that they had \u201coverrun\u201d the small city, which had more than 50,000 residents at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have to be removed,\u201d Trump said back then, nodding when a reporter asked if he\u2019d seek to end temporary protected status for Haitians if he won the election. \u201cAbsolutely, I\u2019d revoke it, and I\u2019d bring them back to their country.\u201d<\/p>\n In a sign that may have signaled how she was going to rule, Reyes last week told attorneys on both sides of the case that as part of her decision, she would be considering remarks that Trump made<\/a> at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland. In the speech, Trump described immigrants from Haiti and parts of Africa and South America as \u201cpouring into our country\u201d from prisons and mental institutions in their homelands.<\/p>\n Reyes rejected depictions of Haitians as criminals in her ruling Monday, writing \u201cHaitian immigrants are overwhelmingly law-abiding, with incarceration rates lower than those of native-born Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n Miami immigration attorney Frandley Julien was among the lawyers around the country who have been watching the case. He said the fact that Reyes was considering Trump\u2019s words, along with the harsh questions she had for government attorneys during hearings in the case, made him almost certain that she would rule for the Haitian plaintiffs, who included a neuroscience Ph.D. candidate, a software engineer, and a nurse who was a doctor in Haiti before he fled the violence there.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know the ruling is going to be good for us,\u201d Julien concluded on Sunday. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean this is over.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the weekend, Noem promised that even if Reyes ruled in favor of the government and temporary protected status ended for Haitians, they would have had other opportunities to stay in the country.<\/p>\n \u201cAny individual who is from a country where TPS is expired has an opportunity to appeal that, and to look at other programs that they may qualify for, and they have a number of months to do that, Noem told reporters in a news conference at Miami International Airport. \u201cThey should reach out to the State Department, they should reach out to the Department of Homeland Security, and we will help them with that.\u201d<\/p>\n Julien and others told The Marshall Project before the judge\u2019s decision that they doubted Noem\u2019s agency would help Haitians under those circumstances.<\/p>\n Reyes\u2019 ruling follows a decision from a U.S. appellate court last week that upheld a lower court ruling in a separate case that Noem had illegally tried to bring an early end<\/a> to temporary protected status for Venezuelans and Haitians.<\/p>\n In anticipation of the ruling, dozens of Haitian clergy members from around the country traveled over the weekend to Springfield for a rally. MS Now reported last week that four people with knowledge of discussions within the Trump administration said that immigration agents were planning to mobilize in Springfield<\/a> as soon as this week.<\/p>\n In South Florida, Julien and others have plans for town hall meetings to help Haitians plan for whatever lies ahead.<\/p>\n If ICE agents descend on either area, it could mark the agency\u2019s latest large-scale operations in the wake of Operation Metro Surge, a mass deportation campaign that began in December in Minneapolis and sparked national outrage after federal agents killed two protesters and detained several people whom judges later ruled were being held illegally.<\/p>\n