Thousands of nursing assistants among 330,000 affected
A nursing home housekeeper in New York who holds TPS from Haiti and who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation described the stakes in personal terms. “I get up at 5am every morning and I take two buses to work to clean the rooms of the residents. I give my heart,” the housekeeper said. “These residents are like my grandmother.” The housekeeper added: “I cannot return to Haiti. It is not safe. I’m afraid that I would be killed if I return.”
The Supreme Court in June ruled 6-3 in favor of the administration’s efforts to terminate TPS for Haitians and Syrians, a decision advocates said would affect families and industries across the country. TPS was first designated for Haitians in 2010 after a catastrophic earthquake, and has been renewed by successive administrations until the current one moved to end it.
Roxana Rivera, assistant to the president at Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 32BJ, which represents thousands of immigrant workers with TPS, said the impact would extend beyond the individual recipients. “The impact is not just for the TPS recipients, but our whole communities,” Rivera said. “In the service sector, they can’t operate without immigrant workers, and they already have a hard time filling vacancies because of turnover.”
Rivera called the administration’s action “a racist act from the administration targeting immigrants.”
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has argued that immigrants with TPS should leave the U.S. and seek other legal immigration statuses, according to a department spokesperson. A White House spokesperson said TPS “was never intended to be a pathway to permanent status or legal residency.” A DHS spokesperson said conditions in Haiti have improved enough to support the return of Haitians, despite the ongoing U.S. travel advisory and a United Nations warning that the country continues to be plagued by violence.
A Haitian immigrant based in New York who has lived in the U.S. since 2000 and requested anonymity for fear of retaliation said the termination of his TPS had upended his life. “The loss of TPS and my work authorization has turned my family’s life upside down,” he said. “This is where I became an adult, established my life, worked, paid taxes and built my family. I am married, and I am the father of two daughters who were born in the United States.”
He described the constant uncertainty. “I’m not asking for special treatment. I’m asking for a fair opportunity to continue supporting my family and contributing to the country that has been my home since 2000,” he said. “It also creates the constant fear that I could be separated from my family and sent to a country that I left more than 25 years ago. My daughters are Americans, but they now have to live with the possibility that their father may not be allowed to remain with them.”
Pierre Etienne, a U.S. citizen in New York with family members and friends on TPS, criticized the decision. “I have family members and close friends who are protected under TPS. They left Haiti because their lives were in danger. Armed gangs took over their neighborhoods, forcing them to flee and leaving them without their homes and everything they had built,” Etienne said. “Knowing that my loved ones could be placed in harm’s way causes me tremendous fear, stress and anxiety.”
The anonymous New York-based worker also condemned what he described as hateful rhetoric from elected officials, including former President Donald Trump’s false 2024 campaign claim that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. “Haitians should not be judged by stereotypes or used as political targets,” he said. “When political leaders make degrading or misleading statements about an entire community, those statements have real consequences. They create fear, discrimination, workplace hostility, bullying of Haitian children and sometimes even threats of violence.”