Seven years ago this month, in March 2018, Haïti Liberté joined with the Miami-based Family Action Network Movement (FANM) and 10 other Haitians living in the U.S. to sue the first Trump administration for taking the “arbitrary and capricious” step of terminating the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of some 50,000 Haitians. The case, known as Saget vs. Trump, began in the New York Eastern District Federal Court in Brooklyn, NY in January 2019 and was presided over by Federal District Judge William F. Kuntz II.
In April 2019, Judge Kuntz blocked the Trump administration’s move to cut-off Haitians’ TPS with a preliminary injunction. It was a big legal victory for the Haitian expatriate community.
The now-returned Trump administration has again announced its plans to not renew TPS for Haitians and, to add insult to injury, has advanced the Haitian TPS expiration date to August 2025 from February 2026.
As a result, the U.S.’s foremost immigration lawyer, Ira Kurzban of the Miami-based law firm Kurzban Kurzban Tetzeli & Pratt, is spearheading a lawsuit to stop the Trump administration for a second time. A human rights advocacy group which Kurzban helped found in Haiti three decades ago, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), explains what is a stake this time.
Kim Ives
Nine Haitian TPS holders, the Haitian Evangelical Clergy Association, and SEIU-32BJ has sued the Trump administration for prematurely halting Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a humanitarian program that allows hundreds of thousands of Haitians to temporarily remain and work in the United States due to Haiti’s current conditions of extraordinary crises.
Alleging that the administration’s early end of TPS was done in violation of immigration law, without proper review, and is driven by the President’s racial animus towards non-white immigrants, the Plaintiffs are asking for the Federal Court in the Eastern District of New York to block the administration’s order.
The law offices representing Plaintiffs include Kurzban Kurzban Tetzeli & Pratt and Just Futures Law. Along with the lawsuit, Just Futures Law and NYU Professor Ellie Happel also filed a FOIA lawsuit demanding decision memos and country conditions reports for the 15 countries currently designated under the TPS program.
“The sudden curtailing of Haiti’s TPS designation has created tremendous fear and stress among hundreds of thousands of law-abiding and hardworking TPS holders and their families, many of whom are the parishioners of our congregations and which include children born in the United States who should not be forced to choose between their country and their parents,” said Pastor Samuel Nicolas, President of the Haitian Evangelical Clergy Association. “Haitian clergy and community leaders stand in solidarity with them.”
“The termination of TPS is motivated by President Trump’s long standing racial animus towards Haitians and other immigrants from countries with predominantly Black populations, not the law or the facts” said Roxana Rivera, with 32BJ SEIU. “We are filing this suit to stand up for the Haitians in our workforce and our communities, and to stand against racist bullying and the undermining of the rule of law.”
“Ending TPS for Haitians is one more chapter in a long history of racially-motivated Trump administration attacks on vulnerable people,” said Brian Concannon, the IJDH’s Executive Director. “The Haitian community, their allies, and the courts stood up to the unconstitutional bullying last time, and we are standing up once again.”
On Feb. 20, 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem’s moved to “partially vacate” DHS’s 2024 extension (under the Biden administration) of Haiti’s TPS for the usual 18 months by arbitrarily cutting six months off its previously fixed expiration date. That means that Haitian TPS holders are at peril of being deported back into the unsafe and dangerous conditions of Haiti – a country currently wracked by political instability, rampant violence, human right abuses, a devastated health care system, and pervasive food insecurity.
“This administration had no authority to prematurely remove critical TPS protections, a literal lifeline for hundreds of thousands of Haitians,” said Sejal Zota, Legal Director of Just Futures Law. “By taking away this program, the Trump administration will uproot Haitian TPS holders from their homes, families, churches, workplaces, and their communities in the U.S. and send them to certain misery in a Haiti… suffering from a breakdown of the healthcare system and near-famine levels of hunger.”
“Trump and Noem’s actions are illegal under the TPS statute and our international promise that we will never return people to countries where their lives or freedom are threatened,” said Ira Kurzban of Kurzban Kurzban Tetzeli & Pratt. “The actions challenged in this complaint represent a depth of cruelty typical of authoritarian and fascist governments and are inconsistent with our values and history as a welcoming nation.”
