Pedestrians walk through the streets of the Little Haiti neighborhood on June 06, 2025 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Monday blocked the termination of temporary protections for roughly 350,000 Haitians from taking effect, a move that prevents the Trump administration from acting to deport them as litigation continues. 

In a searing 83-page order, District of Columbia federal Judge Ana C. Reyes found that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem does not have “unbounded discretion” to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haiti and rejected the Trump administration’s arguments that ending the status is  in the public interest. 

“Secretary Noem complains of strains unlawful immigrants place on our immigration-enforcement system. Her answer? Turn 352,959 lawful immigrants into unlawful immigrants overnight,” Reyes wrote. “She complains of strains to our economy. Her answer? Turn employed lawful immigrants who contribute billions in taxes into the legally unemployable. This approach is many things—in the public interest is not one of them.”

The decision came the day before hundreds of thousands of Haitians were at risk of losing their work permits and deportation protections, opening them up to removal. 

The Trump administration has moved to strip the legal status of immigrants, as many as 1.5 million, by ending the TPS designation and revoking humanitarian protections initially granted under the Biden administration. So far, Noem has ended TPS for 12 countries.  

Other judges found Noem overreached

Reyes said the Trump administration would face no harm by allowing TPS recipients from Haiti to keep their legal status while they challenge Noem’s move to end their status. 

Last year, Noem initially tried to remove extended protections for TPS holders from Haiti granted under the Biden administration, which meant protections would end by August. But several judges found that move from Noem an overreach of her authority. 

TPS is usually granted for 18 months to nationals who hail from a country deemed too dangerous to return to due to violence and instability. 

In her order, Reyes cited contradictions by the Trump administration in its attempts to end TPS for Haiti. She pointed to Noem’s argument that conditions in Haiti have improved, but at the same time the State Department has a “do not travel” advisory for Haiti because of violence. 

There has been escalating gang violence in Haiti since the assassination of the country’s president in 2021. 

“There is an old adage among lawyers. If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither, pound the table,” Reyes wrote. “Secretary Noem, the record to-date shows, does not have the facts on her side—or at least has ignored them. Does not have the law on her side—or at least has ignored it. Having neither and bringing the adage into the 21st century, she pounds X (f/k/a Twitter).”

Reyes was nominated by former President Joe Biden.

‘Hostility to nonwhite immigrants’

Reyes added that one of the arguments from the plaintiffs – Haitian TPS recipients – that Noem “preordained her termination decision and did so

because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants,” is likely substantial.   

Reyes also pointed to the 2024 presidential campaign, where President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance spread false rumors claiming Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, ate residents’ pets. 

In her order, she said Trump referred to those Haitians with TPS as being in the country without legal authorization, despite their legal status, and recalled how the president vowed to revoke “Haiti’s TPS designation and send ‘them back to their country.’”

There are five Haitian TPS recipients who are plaintiffs in the case. They argued that Noem violated the Administrative Procedure Act, the process of how agencies issue regulations, by ending TPS for Haiti. 

Those recipients include Fritz Emmanuel Lesly Miot, who is a neuroscientist researching Alzheimer’s disease who has had TPS since 2011; Rudolph Civil, a software engineer at a national bank who was granted TPS in 2010; Marlene Gail Noble, a laboratory assistant in a toxicology department who’s been a TPS recipient since 2024; Marica Merline Laguerre, an economics major at Hunter College and a TPS holder since 2010; and Vilbrun Dorsainvil, a full-time registered nurse and TPS holder since 2021.

A reprieve

This is not the first time the Trump administration has tried to end the TPS designation for Haiti, but the courts blocked those attempts in 2018.

Monday’s decision came as a brief relief for immigrants and advocates in Springfield, Ohio. 

“This 11th hour reprieve is, of course, welcome,” Ohio Immigrant Alliance Executive Director Lynn Tramonte said in a statement. “But people can’t live their lives like this, pegging their families’ futures to a court case. The least this country can do is honor their strength and contributions by giving them a permanent home.”