House advances legislation preserving Haitian TPS in rebuke of president

In a sharp rebuke of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy, a bipartisan effort led by New York lawmakers to preserve Temporary Protected Status for Haitians passed out of the United States House of Representatives on Thursday.

Temporary Protected Status, also known as TPS, is a humanitarian immigration status that protects those whose home countries have been deemed unsafe from deportation. It also provides recipients with authorization to work.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security first granted TPS to Haitians in 2010 after a catastrophic earthquake. It has been renewed several times since, as the conditions in the country continue to destabilize. The impoverished island nation has been gripped by intense gang violence and political unrest.

However, in a November termination notice, the Trump administration said Haiti’s TPS designation was “contrary to U.S. national interest.” Haiti’s TPS designation and related benefits were slated to end on Feb. 3, 2026, though the ruling remains held up in court.

On Thursday, the House voted to extend TPS for Haitians for three years. Ten Republicans voted in favor of the legislation, including Hudson Valley Rep. Mike Lawler.

The legislation was forced to the floor through a discharge petition introduced by Boston Democrat Rep. Ayanna Pressley.

Last year, Lawler and Long Island Democrat Laura Gillen teamed up to put forth the underlying legislation.

“There are differences of opinion on a lot of aspects of our immigration system,” Lawler said. “But this issue in particular is one that I do think there is bipartisan support behind.”

The bill will need to pass out of the Republican-controlled Senate. If it succeeds, the White House has promised that Trump will veto the legislation.

“The State Department itself says that Haiti is unsafe for Americans to travel to, which is in complete contradiction with the Department of Homeland Security saying that it is safe for Haitian immigrants to return to,” Lawler said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries spent Monday on Long Island with Gillen supporting the legislation.

“This is tantamount to a death sentence right now because the violence in Haiti is so bad right now,” Gillen said.

The vote occurred days after Trump wrote a long post on Truth Social attempting to bolster his argument for ending TPS. He attached a video allegedly of an undocumented Haitian immigrant beating a gas station clerk to death with a hammer in Florida.

According to DHS, the suspect, Rolbert Joachin, “first entered the U.S. in August 2022 and was released into the country under the Biden administration. A federal judge issued a final order of removal against him in 2022, but the Biden administration granted him Temporary Protected Status which expired in 2024.”

“If you import the Third World, you become the Third World,” the president wrote.

Mimi Pierre-Johnson, who runs the Elmont Culture Center on Long Island, spoke at the Monday roundtable with Rep. Gillen and Leader Jeffries. She immigrated to Brooklyn from Haiti at the age of 9.

“There is a beating heart for where I was born. And it hurts when people just talk and [do] not do their research,” she told Spectrum News.

More than 98,000 New York state residents have TPS. This means 28% of Haitian TPS holders in the United States call New York home, according to an amicus brief filed by New York state Attorney General Letitia James.

James is currently leading a coalition of 18 other states calling on the Supreme Court to protect TPS for both Haitians and Syrians.