Haitians lose protected status, told to leave USA

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has given more than 50,000 Haitians with provisional legal residency in this country 18 months to leave, announcing Monday that it will not renew the Temporary Protected Status that has allowed them to remain here for more than seven years.

The decision came after the Department of Homeland Security determined that the “extraordinary conditions” justifying their presence following a 2010 earthquake “no longer exist,” according to a senior administration official.

Haitian government officials, and a number of Florida lawmakers, had asked that the Haitians be allowed to remain, citing ongoing economic and political difficulties in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, as well as a stillraging cholera epidemic.

But the official, one of several authorized to brief reporters, said that Acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke, after extensive research and input from U.S. and Haitian government officials, as well as experts, had “assessed overall that extraordinary temporary conditions” that justified the designation in the first place, “had sufficiently improved such that they no longer prevent nationals of Haiti from returning.”

The official cited a sharp decrease in the number of internally displaced people as a result of the earthquake, and said that a legitimate Haitian government is now in place.

“The law is relatively explicit, that if the conditions on the ground do not support a TPS designation, then the secretary must terminate,” the official said.

The Haitians are among several groups of foreigners living in this country under TPS, some of them for decades, and awaiting a decision on whether their status will be renewed. The vast majority are from Central America and Haiti.

A senior official briefing reporters Monday said that the 18-month “wind-down is a lengthy time to allow families with U.S.-born children to make decisions about what to do, and make arrangements.”