The administration of United States President Donald Trump has announced it plans to strip hundreds of thousands of Haitians of their temporary immigration protections, despite acknowledging that certain conditions in the country “remain concerning”.

On Wednesday, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services agency (USCIS) issued a notice in the Federal Register revealing its intent to sever Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Haitians on February 3.

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Some 352,959 Haitian nationals and stateless people of Haitian origin are expected to be affected, according to government estimates.

The notice, currently in draft form, will become official on Friday.

In explaining its decision, the Department of Homeland Security sought to walk a fine line. On one hand, it argued that violent gang activity and instability in Haiti were national security threats to the US.

On the other, it maintained that conditions in Haiti were safe enough to merit the return of the Haitians currently shielded by TPS.

Nixing the programme for Haitian nationals, the department said, would be akin to giving a vote of confidence to Haiti’s future.

“Ending Temporary Protected Status for Haiti reflects a necessary and strategic vote of confidence in the new chapter Haiti is turning,” the notice said.

“The United States cannot call for bold change on the ground while signaling doubt from afar.”

Temporary Protected Status is a short-term protection granted to foreign applicants who are already in the US but find that conditions in their home country have become unsafe due to conflict, disaster or other emergency circumstances.

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The programme allows recipients to remain in the country legally and receive authorisation to work.

At the start of the year, citizens of 17 countries were protected by different TPS programmes, including Afghanistan, Sudan, Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen.

But the Trump administration has sought to eliminate many of the TPS designations, arguing that they run contrary to US national interests.

The rollback is part of a larger trend to curtail immigration into the US and implement what Trump has promised will be the “largest deportation in the history of our country”.

But critics warn that revoking TPS and refusing to extend protections will send some foreign nationals back into dangerous situations, where their lives could be in peril.

A humanitarian crisis

The TPS programme for Haitian citizens was originally opened on January 21, 2010, shortly after a catastrophic, 7.0-magnitude earthquake shook the island country.

Nearly 222,570 people were killed, and more than 1.3 million were displaced from their homes, according to US government statistics.

That same year, Haiti experienced its first outbreak of cholera in nearly a century. An estimated 10,000 deaths were linked to the disease’s spread at the time, and a new resurgence since 2022 has killed thousands more.

Haiti is considered the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere, and it has long struggled with inadequate housing, food scarcity and insufficient health services.

Those problems have been compounded by corruption and upheaval in the Haitian government as well as the spread of gang violence.

In 2019, national elections were indefinitely postponed, and in 2021, then-President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in his home in Petionville. No president has replaced him since, and a round of national elections was again postponed from this year to late 2026.

The last democratically elected officials in the Haitian National Assembly saw their terms expire in 2023.

A nine-member transitional presidential council currently holds governing power, but its mandate is slated to expire in February.

In the absence of government leadership, gangs and other criminal organisations have spread in Haiti, taking control of as much as 90 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Human rights abuses have proliferated as the gangs expanded their reach. Just this year, from April to June, at least 1,617 people were killed in the violence. In 2024, the death toll was 5,600, an increase over 2023.

At least 1.4 million people are currently displaced from their homes as a result of the fighting.

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Court challenges

But Trump officials have argued that the previous administration, under President Joe Biden, exceeded its authority in approving repeated TPS extensions for Haitians and other foreign groups.

Trump has accused Biden of allowing unfettered immigration into the US and has sought to reverse some of his predecessor’s efforts.

In July 2024, the Biden administration approved the most recent TPS extension for Haitians, allowing the protections to continue for an additional 18 months.

But in February, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, under Trump’s authority, announced she would “partially vacate” the extension, cutting it from 18 months to 12.

That would have forced Haitians with TPS to leave the country or find alternative immigration pathways no later than September 2.

The US State Department currently lists Haiti under a category-four travel advisory, indicating the highest level of danger. It cites the current state of emergency in the country and notes that there are threats from “kidnapping, crime, terrorist activity, civil unrest and limited health care”.

“Do not travel to Haiti for any reason,” the State Department advises on its website.

Plaintiffs have pointed to that fact to argue that curtailing the extension is not only illegal but also irresponsible.

“Revoking Haitians’ legal immigration status that has kept them safe with their families in the US is cruel and dangerous,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement earlier this year, as she and 18 other state prosecutors filed an amicus brief to stop the TPS revocation.

“Haitian immigrants have contributed immensely to our communities, neighborhoods and local economies, and without them, New York and this nation would not be the same.”

Some of the legal challenges to the Trump administration’s decision have raised the question of racial animus.

While campaigning for re-election in 2024, for instance, Trump spread unfounded and racist claims about Haitian immigrants in the US, including that they eat neighbourhood pets.

In July, a federal court in New York heard one of the cases against shortening the TPS extension, known as Haitian Evangelical Clergy Association v Trump.

Judge Brian Coban ruled that shortening the timeline was “arbitrary and capricious” and “violated plaintiffs’ due process rights”.

His ruling, however, left open the possibility that the Trump administration could simply let the existing extension period expire, as it does in Wednesday’s notice.

Arguing for expiration

The notice announcing the end of the TPS protections makes several arguments for why an end to the programme is necessary, at least according to Noem.

“The Secretary has determined that while the current situation in Haiti is concerning, the United States must prioritize its national interests,” the notice said. “Permitting Haitian nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to the U.S. national interest.”

It also described Judge Coban’s decision in July as “interference” in the work of the executive branch.

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The notice asserts Noem has “determined that there are no extraordinary and temporary conditions in Haiti” that should prevent TPS recipients from “returning in safety”.

But “even if the Department found that there existed conditions that were extraordinary”, it maintained that national security concerns prevented the government from extending the TPS programme.

Undocumented immigrants from Haiti continue to arrive in high numbers to the US, the notice said.

It also pointed to the threat of Haitian gangs and organised crime. Earlier this year, the Trump administration labelled two Haitian groups, Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif, as “foreign terrorist organisations”, as part of a larger crackdown against Latin American criminal networks.

The notice also highlighted the absence of a central government in Haiti. “This lack of government control has not only destabilized Haiti internally but has also had direct consequences for US public safety,” it said.

Still, it underscored Noem’s belief that there have been “positive developments” in Haiti.

In October, for example, the United Nations Security Council approved the creation of a Gang Suppression Force to help bolster Haiti’s police.

That initiative would replace a Kenya-led, UN-endorsed multinational mission that has struggled to make a dent in Haiti’s gang violence.

The notice argued that offering TPS protections would undermine goals for Haiti’s recovery.

“Our immigration policy must align with our foreign policy vision of a secure, sovereign, and self-reliant Haiti,” the notice said.

Nonetheless, its assessment of Haiti’s safety was measured. Only “parts of the country are suitable to return to,” it said.

Earlier this week, the Trump administration also announced it was peeling back TPS protections for citizens of Myanmar, another country facing chronic instability.