By NAN Staff Writer, NewsAmericas Now
News Americas, WASHINGTON, D.C., Fri. July 24, 2026: A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from ending Haiti TPS and deportation protections for more than 300,000 Haitian nationals living in the United States, at least for a few more days, as the fate of Temporary Protected Status for Haiti heads back into legal limbo.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied the administration’s request Thursday to immediately lift a lower court order that had paused the termination of TPS while legal challenges continued. The panel, which included two judges nominated by former President Biden and one by President Trump in his first term, ruled the administration had not shown a stay was warranted, “particularly given that the case will be returned to this court on July 27, 2026.” The order keeps TPS and work permits valid for Haitian nationals through at least that date, rather than allowing them to lapse Friday as the administration had sought.
How the case got here
TPS for Haiti was first granted in 2010 following the earthquake that devastated the country, and has been extended repeatedly as conditions worsened. Then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation in November 2025, effective February 3, 2026, alongside a separate termination for Syria. Haitian TPS holders sued, and a district court in Washington paused the termination while the case proceeded. The Second and D.C. Circuits both declined to lift that pause.
The Supreme Court then took up the consolidated Haiti and Syria cases in Mullin v. Doe – styled after current DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin – and ruled 6-3 along ideological lines on June 25 that federal law bars judicial review of non-constitutional claims challenging a DHS secretary’s decision to terminate a country’s TPS designation. That ruling cleared the way for the administration to proceed with ending TPS for Haiti and Syria, though this week’s D.C. Circuit order delays that outcome by a few more days while the case is formally returned to the appeals court.
The administration is separately pushing to end TPS for more than 1 million holders from nearly a dozen other countries, whose status remains uncertain following the Supreme Court’s ruling.
A country the US calls too dangerous to visit
The administration has argued that conditions in Haiti no longer justify a TPS designation. That argument sits uneasily alongside the U.S. government’s own public warnings about the country. The State Department’s current travel advisory for Haiti is a Level 4, “Do Not Travel,” citing risks of “crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest, and limited health care,” and warning that violence including robbery, carjacking, sexual assault and stray gunfire “happens frequently.” The Federal Aviation Administration separately prohibits U.S. air carriers from flying to Port-au-Prince due to ongoing instability.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, briefing the U.N. Security Council on July 20 after a trip to Haiti, described Port-au-Prince as a “kill zone,” recounting an incident in which Haitian national police officers were killed and their bodies mutilated in the street. Human Rights Watch has warned that Haitians deported back into the country, often perceived as wealthier because of time spent in the U.S., could become targets for kidnapping and extortion.
Congress and the administration
Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a Democratic motion that would have extended Haitian TPS until at least the next presidential election. In April, House Democrats, joined by a handful of Republicans, had passed separate legislation extending Haitian TPS protections by three years, sponsored by Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Laura Gillen of New York, after supporters used a discharge petition to force the bill out of committee. That measure has not advanced in the Senate.
Secretary Mullin, following the Supreme Court’s ruling, called on Haitians to voluntarily leave the country, offering $2,100 to those who self-deport.
NewsAmericasNow will continue following the case as it returns to the D.C. Circuit on July 27th and will update on what it means for the more than 300,000 Haitian TPS holders whose status remains in question.