Cardinal Blase Cupich. Image: Archdiocese of Chicago.
On Jan. 29, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops urged the Trump administration to rescind the decision of Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti.
TPS was authorized by Congress as part of the Immigration Act of 1990, by which people who have fled countries experiencing civil strife, environmental disaster or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions,” would be granted legal immigration status and work authorization as long as those circumstances continued to prevent their safe return to their home country. The secretary’s action follows her earlier decision to terminate TPS for Venezuelans.
In ending the protections, Secretary Noem said that conditions in both Haiti and Venezuela had improved and that it was not in the national interest to allow immigrants from the two countries to stay on for a temporary program.
Yet, the U.S. State Department continues to list both countries with “Level 4: Do Not Travel” advisories. Haiti is experiencing a significant rise in gang violence, with criminal groups controlling most of the capital, Port-au-Prince. By the end of 2025, displacement reached a record 1.4 million people.
Presently, famine-level food insecurity affects over 5 million citizens, and the lack of a stable government makes the safe absorption of returnees impossible. As the USCCB rightly concluded, “There is simply no realistic opportunity for the safe and orderly return of people to Haiti at this time.”
Likewise, Venezuela continues to suffer from political repression, a collapsed health-care system and severe shortages of food and medicine. Deportees face the risk of arbitrary detention or persecution by the state upon arrival, especially if they fled the country for political reasons.
The termination of legal status for the Haitians was slated to take effect on Feb. 3, but a federal judge issued a temporary stay on Feb. 2. If the termination went into effect, it would turn “documented” residents into “undocumented” ones overnight.
This situation is all the more complicated in that thousands of TPS holders have U.S. citizen children. Termination forces parents to choose between taking their children to a dangerous conflict zone or leaving them behind in the U.S. foster-care system. Even if the newly undocumented do not immediately leave the country, they lose their livelihood, their health insurance and their homes.
But there are also economic consequences for the United States, as these people, like all immigrant groups, are deeply integrated into the American workforce, particularly in essential sectors. For instance, in Florida, Haitian workers make up 20% of the staff in nursing homes and retirement communities. Terminating their status creates immediate labor shortages in elder care.
Haitians with TPS contribute nearly $6 billion annually to the U.S. gross domestic product and pay over $1.5 billion in taxes. And in cases where the newly undocumented have been the primary breadwinner, dependents in the family who are U.S. citizens will fall into poverty, increasing the strain on local and state social and charitable safety nets.
Secretary Noem’s decision has been challenged in the courts with mixed success. A federal appeals court ruled last month that the administration’s decision to rescind TPS was illegal because the statute providing for it does not give the DHS Secretary the power to “vacate” a prior extension. But the U. S. Supreme Court has allowed some terminations to proceed while litigation continues. This has left women and men and their families granted TPS living in fear and a state of legal limbo.
This situation again underscores the need for our elected officials in Washington to enact significant immigration reform. Yet, as the USCCB stated last week, “as long as Congress fails in this regard, and the current conditions in Haiti persist, the onus is on the executive branch to act in a just and merciful way.”
We all have a stake in making sure that the rights of people are protected and the legacy of our country proclaimed in the poem of Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty continues to flourish and make us proud:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
This article was originally published on Wednesday 4 February 2026 from Chicago Catholic, the newspaper of the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, Illinois. It is reproduced with permission from Cardinal Cupich and the Archdiocese.
