Mayorkas Moves to Shield Hundreds of Thousands From Deportation Back to Troubled Caribbean Nation

The Department of Homeland Security announced Friday that it is shielding an extra 300,000 Haitian nationals from deportation and offering them work permits, citing the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the country.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorka said he is extending and redesignating Haiti for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 18 months until February 2026. The redesignation allows Haitian immigrants, including those in the country illegally, who were not covered by prior designations to apply for the protection and for work authorization.

To be eligible, Haitians must have been in the U.S. as of June 3. DHS predicts that it will allow an estimated 309,000 additional nationals to file for TPS, on top of those already protected.

{snip}

The use of TPS has repeatedly sparked pushback from Republicans and immigration hawks, who say that the use of TPS encourages illegal immigration from those countries, with people coming in anticipation of the next redesignation. When the Venezuelan TPS redesignation was announced, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sources told Fox News that the decision will only compound the problem at the border and draw even more Venezuelan migrants because of the “pull” factor of being granted TPS status and the ability to get work authorization.

There were 163,781 encounters of Haitian nationals at the border in Fiscal Year 2023, and that number has already been exceeded in Fiscal Year 2024. The Biden administration has also allowed Haitians to be flown into the U.S. for parole as part of the parole processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans (CHNV). {snip}