A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting hundreds of thousands of Haitians by upholding a lower court’s decision that found the termination of their protected status likely unconstitutional.
In a 2-1 decision issued late Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected a bid by the Trump administration to lift a stay on the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 350,000 Haitians, preserving their right to live and work in the United States while legal challenges proceed. The ruling maintains a February 2 order by U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who found that the administration’s effort to end the humanitarian program likely violated constitutional equal protection guarantees and statutory procedures.
Majority judges Florence Pan and Brad Garcia distinguished the situation in Haiti from previous litigation involving Venezuela, emphasizing that deporting individuals to a nation with a “collapsing rule of law” would leave them “vulnerable to violence” and without access to essential medical care. In his dissent, Judge Justin Walker argued that the legal circumstances were “the legal equivalent of fraternal, if not identical, twins” to the Venezuelan case where the Supreme Court had previously allowed terminations to proceed.