Trump Cuts Protections for Haitians, Putting Them on Track for Deportation

The Trump administration on Thursday cut protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the United States, putting them on track to be targeted for deportation this summer, according to government documents and an official with the Department of Homeland Security.

The decision was signed this week by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, and is the latest in President Trump’s sweeping crackdown on immigration, including people whom the Biden administration had authorized to remain in the country.

The Haitians affected by the decision had been living in the United States under Temporary Protected Status, which is intended to help people in the United States who cannot return safely and immediately to their countries because of a natural disaster or an armed conflict. More than 500,000 Haitians in the United States are eligible for the status.

Before he left office, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had granted them an 18-month extension of their deportation protections. On Thursday, Ms. Noem revoked that extension — meaning those protections will now expire in August instead of next February.

Ms. Noem must then decide whether she will end protections for Haitians altogether, a move that appears likely. Mr. Trump and other critics of Temporary Protected Status say it is not being used as intended, instead serving as a pathway to stay in the country indefinitely.

Some Haitian migrants have had the protections since 2010, when an earthquake hit the country and the Obama administration first extended that status to its citizens.

Last month, the Trump administration announced that Venezuelans would lose their protected status beginning in April. It was a blow to 600,000 people who believed they would not only be protected from deportation but also provided work permits until at least the fall of 2026.

Mr. Trump had signaled that such a move was in the cards for Haitian immigrants with the status. “Absolutely I’d revoke it,” Mr. Trump said in an October interview with the channel News Nation following false claims he spread about Haitians in Ohio eating pets.

A homeland security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the agency had cut the protections by six months because they did not want to let the final decision languish.

Already, advocates for immigrants are challenging the Trump administration’s cuts to the T.P.S. program in federal court. During the first Trump administration, U.S. officials’ attempts to end the program for certain countries were stopped in federal court.

On Wednesday evening, an advocacy group sued the Trump administration’s cuts to the Venezuelan protected-status program. They said the decision to cut the protections for Venezuelans was unlawful and are asking a judge to block the move.

“Venezuela is in crisis. Even Trump admits that. The influx of Venezuelans to the United States due to their country’s humanitarian crisis is exactly the reason that T.P.S. exists,” said Emi MacLean, an attorney with the A.C.L.U. of Northern California who is helping to sue the government, in a statement.

One of the attorneys on the case, said Ahilan Arulanantham, who helps lead the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the U.C.L.A. School of Law, said the decision to cut down the time Haitians would be protected was also against the law and could have vast consequences.

“T.P.S. has served as a crucial lifeline for many members of the Haitian community, allowing them to live and work in the United States at a time when Haiti is experiencing tremendous political, social and economic instability,” he said.

The decision issued by the Biden administration to extend Temporary Protected Status for Haitians last year cited ongoing issues in their country including widespread violence and political instability.

Sherika Blanc, a 34-year-old Haitian woman who has had protected status since 2010, said that the decision was gutting. Ms. Blanc was a plaintiff in the lawsuit that blocked the Trump administration’s repeal of protections for Haitians in 2018.

“My heart is breaking and just that uncertainty of what could happen and the conditions of Haiti right now,” she said.

Ms. Blanc said she was considering moving away from the United States along with her four children who had been born in the country.

“Basically, we’re not wanted,” she said.