Federal Judge Blocks Trump Move To End Haitian Protections

On Monday, February 3, 2026, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., delivered a major blow to the Trump administration’s immigration agenda, halting its attempt to end temporary protected status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in the United States. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes issued an injunction that blocks the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from terminating TPS for Haitians, at least while a lawsuit challenging the move continues to wind its way through the courts, according to the Associated Press.

The stakes could hardly be higher for the roughly 350,000 Haitians who have built lives, families, and careers in the U.S. under the TPS program, which allows individuals to live and work legally if their home country is considered too dangerous to return to due to natural disasters, political instability, or humanitarian crises. As the Associated Press reported, the TPS designation for Haiti was first granted in 2010 following a devastating earthquake and has been renewed nearly a dozen times since, particularly as the Caribbean nation has faced relentless turmoil, including the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and the subsequent takeover of much of Port-au-Prince by violent gangs.

Judge Reyes’s ruling came just one day before the protections were set to expire, a deadline that had loomed over the Haitian community for months. In her sweeping 83-page opinion, Reyes did not mince words about the motivations behind Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to terminate TPS for Haitians. "Kristi Noem has a First Amendment right to call immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement junkies, and any other inapt name she wants. Secretary Noem, however, is constrained by both our Constitution and the [Administrative Procedure Act] to apply faithfully the facts to the law in implementing the TPS program," Reyes wrote, as cited in the court documents. "The record to-date shows she has yet to do that."

Reyes concluded that the evidence strongly suggested Noem’s decision was motivated by racial animus rather than by an objective assessment of whether it was safe for Haitians to return home, especially given the ongoing armed conflict and gang violence in Haiti. Attorneys for the Haitian TPS holders had warned in a December 2025 filing that ending protections could have deadly consequences, stating, "If the termination stands, people will almost certainly die. Some will likely be killed, others will likely die from disease, and yet others will likely starve to death."

The Trump administration, however, has pushed back, asserting that conditions in Haiti have improved enough to justify ending TPS. They pointed to the authorization of a new multinational force to combat gangs as evidence of progress and insisted that Secretary Noem’s decision was based on reasoned analysis, not prejudice. In a November 2025 government notice, Noem argued that even if extraordinary and temporary conditions existed in Haiti, it was “contrary to the national interest of the United States to permit Haitian nationals — to remain temporarily in the United States.”

The Department of Homeland Security is expected to appeal Judge Reyes’s decision, but for now, Haitians with TPS will maintain their protected status as the litigation continues. The legal battle was spearheaded by five Haitian TPS holders—a neuroscientist, a software engineer, a laboratory assistant, a college student, and a registered nurse—who sued the administration, highlighting that some have lived in the U.S. since childhood and have no ties to Haiti.

This is not the first time the courts have intervened to block efforts to strip TPS from Haitians or other groups. In July 2025, a federal judge in New York also blocked Noem’s attempt to end protections prematurely. And just days before Reyes’s ruling, a panel from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Noem lacked the authority to revoke the Biden administration’s 2024 extension of TPS for Haitians—though that decision did not itself provide immediate relief to immigrants, as reported by multiple outlets.

The Trump administration’s broader push to curtail TPS has affected hundreds of thousands from other countries as well. According to the Associated Press, Noem has terminated TPS for about 600,000 Venezuelans, 60,000 people from Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal, more than 160,000 Ukrainians, and thousands from Afghanistan and Cameroon. In fact, TPS designations for ten countries—including Afghanistan, Myanmar, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, South Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela—have been ended under Noem’s direction. Courts have restored protections for several of these groups, but the Supreme Court last year allowed the end of TPS for Venezuelans to stand.

TPS, by design, does not provide a pathway to citizenship; it is a humanitarian measure intended to prevent people from being sent back to life-threatening situations. Yet, for many, it is the only legal status they have ever known. The lawsuit that led to Judge Reyes’s ruling underscores this reality, with plaintiffs who have spent most of their lives in the U.S. and would face extraordinary danger if forced to return to Haiti.

The humanitarian crisis in Haiti has only worsened in recent years. After the 2021 assassination of President Moïse, gangs consolidated their grip on the capital, displacing hundreds of thousands and plunging the country into chaos. The Biden administration had extended TPS for Haitians in 2024, acknowledging these dire circumstances, but Noem’s November 2025 announcement made clear the new administration’s intent to reverse course, regardless of conditions on the ground.

The legal wrangling has played out against a backdrop of inflammatory rhetoric. During his campaign, President Trump made a series of derogatory statements about Haitian immigrants, including the infamous admission—confirmed by The Associated Press—that he called Haiti and African nations “shithole countries” in 2018. Judge Reyes explicitly considered these comments in her ruling, noting, “To its credit, the Government does not defend President Trump’s derogatory statements. No one rationally could.”

Political divisions in Congress have also come to the fore. Some Democrats have signed onto a discharge petition to force a vote to extend TPS for Haitians, but the path forward remains uncertain, especially as the DHS prepares its appeal. Meanwhile, the lives of hundreds of thousands hang in the balance, caught between shifting policies and the grinding machinery of the courts.

As the legal challenges continue, TPS holders and their advocates remain in a state of anxious limbo, unsure whether the protection that has allowed them to build lives in the U.S. will endure. For now, Judge Reyes’s ruling offers a reprieve, but the future of Haitian TPS—and the fate of those who depend on it—remains as uncertain as ever.