Temporary protected status expires for Haiti and Syria, affecting more than 300,000

Digital Curator

The legal status allowing hundreds of thousands of people from Haiti and Syria to stay temporarily in the U.S. due to humanitarian crises in their home countries expired Monday.

The expiration comes after a Supreme Court ruling last month cleared the way for the Trump administration to end temporary protected status for Haiti and Syria. There are more than 300,000 Haitian nationals and 6,000 Syrian nationals on TPS in the U.S.

TPS is a humanitarian program that allows people to stay in the United States and obtain work authorization. Countries can be designated for TPS when there are conditions that “temporarily prevent the country’s nationals from returning safely,” according to Citizenship and Immigration Services, such as a natural disaster or ongoing armed conflict.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement about the change, “Temporary Protected Status is exactly that – temporary. For too long, TPS has been allowed to function as a de facto amnesty program despite Congress never intending it to be permanent.”

Former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem determined that Haiti no longer met the conditions for its designation for TPS, USCIS said.

However, there is confusion over whether TPS has officially ended. The Washington Post reported that lawyers say it hasn’t ended until lower courts execute the Supreme Court ruling and “officially allow the Trump administration to terminate the program.”

Haiti, a nation of 11.4 million in the Caribbean, has faced severe economic and political crises. Gang activity has displaced more than 1.3 million people. There has been no president since 2021, when the sitting president was assassinated, and the country, considered one of the world’s least developed, exists in virtual anarchy.

“Every democratic institution, from Haiti’s justice system to parliament, is no longer functioning,” the Guardian reported in 2023.

TPS status was first established for the country in 2010, after a devastating earthquake.

The U.S. has a Level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory for Haiti, warning that “Violent crime is rampant in Haiti, especially in Port-au-Prince,” its capital. The State Department says, “The escalation of fighting between armed groups has led to a rise in random gunfire incidents. There is risk of being struck by stray bullets, even for people not directly involved in the violence.” And the FAA prohibits U.S. air carrier flights to Port-au-Prince due to the instability.

Still, Haitians whose TPS status was set to expire Monday would be expected to leave the United States.

“What we would say now is it’s closing time, which means you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here,” a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said.

There’s no direct pathway to get a green card from TPS, and under the Trump administration, the rate of asylum granted has dropped drastically. But Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said people with TPS should leave the U.S. and find other legal immigration statuses.

When asked on CNN if he believed Haiti was safe for people to return to, Mullin did not answer, saying later in the interview, “Maybe they can go back there and help restore their country.”

Mullin cited Syria, which has also lost TPS status, as a “prime example” of a country that has “come a long way” after its civil war ended with the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.

Syria’s Transitional President Ahmed Al Sharaa previously led an al-Qaida-associated group designated by the U.S. government as a foreign terrorist organization. He has renounced former ties to al-Qaida and the Islamic State and met with President Donald Trump in the White House in November 2025.

The Supreme Court’s May ruling on TPS said it was unlikely that race was a motivating factor in the decision to end TPS. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan said it was telling that the majority opinion did not include Trump’s statements about Haitians, saying they were “so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print.”

She quoted Trump as making the following comments: Haitians in Ohio were “eating the pets” of their neighbors. Haitians “probably have AIDS.” Haiti is a “(s—)hole country,” which is “filthy, dirty, disgusting.” Haitian immigration is “like a death wish for our country.” Haitians are “poisoning the blood” of the nation.