A federal judge extended temporary protected status for about 353,000 migrants from Haiti on Monday night, saying the Trump administration’s abrupt move last year to withdraw the legal protections was probably illegal.
U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes agreed to extend the authorizations for people from Haiti pending further legal proceedings sought by five TPS holders who filed a lawsuit in D.C. federal court to stop the mass expirations, which the Department of Homeland Security had said in an official notice would take effect Tuesday.
In an 83-page opinion, Reyes said the legal challenge was likely to succeed, though she has yet to issue a final ruling. Reyes opened her opinion with a quote from George Washington and went on to rebuke Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem for labeling Haitian migrants as criminals, citing government data contradicting that claim.
“Kristi Noem has a First Amendment right to call immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement junkies, and any other inapt name she wants,” Reyes wrote. “Secretary Noem, however, is constrained … to apply faithfully the facts to the law in implementing the TPS program. The record to-date shows she has yet to do that.”
Haitian TPS holders were caught off-guard by the move — and relieved by the judge’s decision to block the mass expirations. The DHS notice was published in the federal register two months ago, on Nov. 28.
In a statement responding to the ruling, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said Reyes was “legislating from the bench,” vowing that the administration would appeal to the Supreme Court if necessary.
“Haiti’s TPS was granted following an earthquake that took place over 15 years ago,” McLaughlin said. “It was never intended to be a de facto amnesty program, yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades.”
Government attorneys had sought to dismiss the case, arguing in legal filings that federal courts could not review the TPS terminations. Reyes denied that motion Monday.
The Haitian TPS-holders who sued — a neuroscientist, software engineer, laboratory assistant, college economics major and registered nurse — said through their attorneys that Reyes forcefully rejected not only the government’s legal arguments but its rhetoric branding migrants as criminals despite data showing the contrary.
“As the government’s own evidence demonstrated, Haiti remains an extraordinarily dangerous place, marked by widespread gang violence, rampant disease, lack of access to clean drinking water, severe housing instability, and the absence of a functioning government,” the attorneys at the law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner said in a statement.
One of the attorneys, Geoff Pipoly, said the TPS terminations were haphazardly done and violated federal law. DHS officials did not consult with the State Department before deciding to rescind TPS for Haitians, he said. “The entire statutory process for TPS was not followed here,” he said.
The possibility of losing protected status had terrified many of the approximately 15,000 Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, who were targeted by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2024 and by his administration since he took office.
Like Haitian immigrants across the country, including large enclaves in South Florida and New York, they had been scrambling Monday to plan for the possibility that ICE officers would soon arrive to begin rounding up residents.
Some were seeking to move away from their homes and go into hiding, perhaps in churches that would offer refuge. Others were crafting legal documents to delegate responsibility for their children in case they were taken away. After the ruling late Monday, that sense of urgency lessened sharply — at least for now.
Marckensonn Raymond, 41, a Creole translator in Springfield, said in a text message Monday night that Reyes is “a mother to all Haitians living here in the United States.”
“Thousands of Haitians in the city were on edge waiting for a decision that would profoundly impact them,” Raymond said. “But since we are children of God and we have done nothing wrong in this country, today is a moment of deliverance for us.”
“Children can go to school tomorrow. People can go to work tomorrow,” said Dady Fanfan, a Springfield real estate agent from Haiti, describing the sense of relief in the community.
The Rev. Carl Ruby, an evangelical pastor in Springfield who had spent the day — and much of the past few years — organizing for Haitian residents, said Monday night that he had just gone out and had a margarita to celebrate.
“I called and started telling some Haitian members, and they started weeping,” he said. “It’s just amazing, absolutely amazing.”
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