The Trump administration’s effort to revoke protections for 350,000 people from Haiti who fled their troubled homeland is facing what could be the last legal challenge before Temporary Protected Status for Haitians expires early next month.
Ending T.P.S. for Haitians was part of a wave of actions by the Department of Homeland Security last year as President Trump launched his campaign to carry out mass deportations and remake the U.S. immigration system.
T.P.S., which provides a shield against deportation for people from countries in the throes of a humanitarian crisis or armed conflict, has been a target of Trump officials, who say the program has become anything but temporary and no longer serves its intended purpose.
But revoking protections for Haitians, Venezuelans and people from several other countries has prompted more than a dozen legal challenges, including the case involving Haitians that is being heard this week in federal court in Washington, D.C.
Lawyers challenging the decision to end T.P.S. for Haitians have argued that the move was driven by politics and racial animus rather than by a required assessment of safety conditions in Haiti, where gangs have taken control of much of the capital since the 2021 assassination of the last elected president.
The lawyers have asked the judge in case, Ana C. Reyes of the Federal District Court, to put the revocation of T.P.S. for Haitians on hold while the lawsuit proceeds. Judge Reyes said on Tuesday that she expects to rule on that request by Feb. 2, the day before the status is scheduled to expire for Haitians.
During the hearing, Judge Reyes pressed government lawyers about whether the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, had adequately reviewed conditions in Haiti before terminating T.P.S.
The administration, which is seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, has argued that ending T.P.S. for Haitians is in the national interest and that Secretary Noem is “unfettered by any statutory standard whatsoever.”
At the hearing on Tuesday, the judge focused on an email exchange that the administration cited as evidence that it had met its obligation to assess whether conditions in Haiti had improved sufficiently to justify ending the protection.
In the exchange, a homeland security official asked a State Department official for input on designation for Haiti T.P.S. According to the judge, the State Department official replied that the agency “believes there would be no foreign policy concerns.”
“That response does not address country conditions in Haiti,” Judge Reyes told one of the government lawyers, Dhruman Sampat.
The judge noted that the one-sentence reply from the State Department official had been sent just 53 minutes after the inquiry arrived on a Friday afternoon, and she suggested that the official could not have consulted experts or otherwise conducted a meaningful review.
In a back and forth that lasted more than 30 minutes, Mr. Sampat argued that the term “foreign policy” could reasonably be interpreted to encompass conditions on the ground. Judge Reyes was unconvinced. “This does not address whether it’s safe for Haitian T.P.S. holders to return to Haiti,” she said.
The named Haitian plaintiffs in the lawsuit include a registered nurse, a doctoral candidate researching Alzheimer’s disease, a woman adopted by Americans and a college student.
In a government notice, the Trump administration had cited a U.N. finding that there were “emerging signals of hope” in Haiti. But it did not refer to the U.N.’s assessments that Haiti was immersed in a “life and death emergency” and was going through one of five “highest concern” hunger crises in the world.
The judge faulted the government for “selectively” using the line from the report to justify not extending T.P.S., while ignoring a plethora of concerns about conditions in Haiti the U.N. had laid out.
“You cannot rely on the article for one thing and not the other,” Judge Reyes said.
Later in the hearing, the judge read aloud a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in which he said that Haiti was facing “immediate security challenges.” The judge then asked the government lawyer if Mr. Rubio had been consulted about conditions in Haiti.
Lawyers representing the plaintiffs have also said that the government has sought to cast Haitian T.P.S. beneficiaries as criminals after identifying fewer than 900 out of 350,000 of the beneficiaries, or about .25 percent, as public safety threats.
“They are trying to fit the facts to their conclusion,” said Geoff Pipoly, a lead litigator for the plaintiffs. “Their entire process was informed by political considerations.”
T.P.S. was created by law 35 years ago to offer humanitarian protection to people from countries experiencing armed conflict, natural disasters or other “extraordinary and temporary” conditions.
While the program allows recipients to live and work legally in the United States, it does not provide a pathway to permanent residency or citizenship.
Applicants must pass background checks, and those with a felony conviction or two or more misdemeanors cannot secure the status. Its holders can obtain driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers, but they are not eligible for most public benefits.
The Trump administration has moved aggressively to cancel T.P.S. from more than one million immigrants. People who lose the status become undocumented, lose their jobs and face deportation.
Economists have warned that shedding hundreds of thousands of workers by removing T.P.S. and carrying out mass deportations could disrupt could disrupt American businesses and cause prices of many goods and services to climb. Labor shortages in the hospitality, senior care and construction industries are all but certain.
Aline Gue, a Haitian community leader who attended the hearing, said, “Ending T.P.S. will not only break up our communities, it will result in the loss of billions of dollars for the U.S. economy.”
“It puts our Haitians in a position to be deported to a country where there is documented mass displacement, widespread gender-based violence and no recourse for justice,” she said.
If Judge Reyes pauses the revocation for Haitians, the government is likely to appeal, and the case could end up before the Supreme Court.
Early last year, Ms. Noem announced the end of T.P.S. for about 350,000 Venezuelans who had received it in 2023 and later ordered the termination of the status for another 250,000 Venezuelans granted protection in 2021.
Ms. Noem argued that conditions in Venezuela had improved and said recipients of the program were a burden on American taxpayers. She also claimed that members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal gang, were among those benefiting from the designation.
The Supreme Court in October allowed the administration to strip Venezuelans of the status while a legal challenge proceeds in lower courts.
Recently, more federal judges have pushed back against the administration’s effort to revoke T.P.S. from other foreign nationals.
On Dec. 31, a federal judge in California ruled that the Trump administration had unlawfully terminated T.P.S. for more than 60,000 people from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua. The judge found that Ms. Noem’s revocation had been preordained and rooted in racial animus, rather than conditions on the ground, and had run afoul of the required process to wind it down.
In a separate ruling, on Dec. 30, a federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the termination of the status for about 230 people from South Sudan, similarly finding the administration had acted unlawfully. That designation had been set to expire on Jan. 6.
Miriam Jordan reports from a grass roots perspective on immigrants and their impact on the demographics, society and economy of the United States.
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