The impending end of temporary protected status for Haitians in the U.S. is generating human and economic costs in South Florida — and carries potential political implications for the region’s congressional candidates.
President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered an end to TPS for Haitians, including an estimated 158,000 living in Florida. The deadline, originally set for Friday, was delayed for three days by an appeals court ruling late Thursday.
Unless there’s another extension, an estimated 93,000 Haitians working in the state — cooks and servers, agricultural workers, stockers, security guards and nursing assistants — will no longer be legally authorized to work in the U.S.
And they will be subject to deportation to Haiti, where much of the country is controlled by violent gangs — and a place the U.S. State Department considers so dangerous that it warns Americans not to travel there “for any reason due to the risk of crime, terrorism, kidnapping, unrest, and limited health care.”
Given the large Haitian communities in North Miami, Miramar, Boynton Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, Lauderhill, Lauderdale Lakes, Delray Beach and West Palm Beach — plus Miami’s Little Haiti — the end of TPS is a significant regional political issue.
Partisan divide
South Florida’s current and would-be members of Congress, who have the greatest potential to influence the issue, are divided on the issue.
Democrats want TPS extended, and have warned about moral implications and the economic impact of ending the designation.
“TPS extension must be granted, not merely for the Haitian immigrants that are here, but for the American people. The economic impact is going to be severe on us,” said Dale Holness, a former Broward County commissioner and candidate in the 20th Congressional District Democratic primary. “You look at our hospitals, our hotels, our restaurants, in every facet of our lives, they’re working, and they’re paying taxes.”
And, Holness said in a recent interview, “the idea that you can send them back to a country that we’re saying Americans shouldn’t travel to? It’s crazy. … People are being killed in the streets. People are afraid for their lives.”
Republican congressional candidates, by contrast, are for the most part reluctant to deviate from Trump’s policy. Republican congressional hopefuls expressed varying degrees of support for ending TPS for Haitians — and for Venezuelans. Weston and Doral are home to many Venezuelans with TPS.
Republicans said they have faith in the Trump administration’s determination that Haiti is stable enough for people to be returned and don’t see economic downsides.
“Look, this world is tough. There’s no doubt about it. There’s conflict,” said Michael Thompson, a Republican candidate in the 22nd Congressional District. “But I think that we need to focus on making America greater and not necessarily worrying about tough living conditions for individuals that live in other countries.”
“We’ve provided them with an opportunity to come here with safe haven for many, many, many years. Now we can’t as a country just continue to allow that to happen,” Thompson said in response to a question about TPS for Haitians and Venezuelans. “I’m absolutely for sending both protective statuses back to their countries.”
What is TPS?
Widely known by the acronym TPS, temporary protected status is a humanitarian program allows people from designated countries such as Haiti to live and work in the U.S. when conditions make it dangerous to return to their home countries.
Presidential administrations have renewed the designations so they sometimes last for many years. TPS began for Haitians in 2010 and for Venezuelans in 2021.
That’s an issue for many Republicans, including Brent Andersen, who is seeking his party’s nomination in the 20th Congressional District. He pointed to the “temporary” in the program’s name. “What TPS has become is a system that just becomes permanent, and that’s not acceptable.”
The second-term Trump administration has sought to end TPS for nationals from many countries. TPS for Haitians and Syrians is scheduled to end Friday after a June 25 U.S. Supreme Court opinion allowed the termination to proceed.
Studies have estimated 330,000 Haitian TPS holders and 505,000 Venezuelans with TPS are in the U.S.
TPS gets caught up in the highly charged debate over legal and illegal immigration to the U.S.
Stopping people from entering the country illegally via the southern border was a major issue in Trump’s 2024 reelection campaign, and curbing illegal immigration appealed to some Democratic voters as well. More recently, arrest and deportation tactics employed by ICE have eroded support.
Republican congressional candidates generally support elimination of TPS.
And some Republican candidates have asserted that TPS holders aren’t in the country legally, and aren’t vetted.
David Burck, a Republican candidate in the 22nd District, said he “definitely feel(s) for the people.” But, he added, it is important to “really, actually vet out who’s here.”
And Michael Carbonara, another 22nd District Republican candidate, wants a system where “they can actually go through vetting, and we know who’s here. We can get out the criminals. We need to deport the criminals, the human traffickers, the drug traffickers.”
Carbonara said he has “met many people down in South Florida that are on TPS (and) they’re not vetted.”
Immigration lawyers and Democrats said that’s not accurate.
Sandra Cherfrere, a detention attorney for Americans for Immigrant Justice, whose parents are Haitian immigrants, said at a Broward news conference after last month’s Supreme Court action that people with TPS are fingerprinted and undergo background checks every time they reapply.
“This whole idea that there’s a whole bunch of criminals walking around with temporary protected status is not true at all,” she said.
Holness also said the perception among some that TPS holders are “illegal and they’re undocumented” is wrong. “We know who they are. We know where they live. We know where they work. We know if they go to school. So they’re documented. They’re part of our workforce,” he said. “These are not criminals, either, because they’ve been documented and screened.”
Trump
Eliminating TPS is a longstanding goal of the president’s. Democrats highlight Trump’s history in regard to the Caribbean nation.
Trump campaigned in South Florida’s Haitian American community in 2016, but during his first term he disparaged Haiti as a “s—hole country.” Campaigning for a second term in 2024, he repeated Haitians legally living in Springfield, Ohio, were in the U.S. illegally, and that they were eating neighborhood dogs and cats.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat running for reelection in the 20th District, which is home to most of the African American and Caribbean American communities in Broward, said Trump’s comments about Haiti and Haitians illuminate what’s going on.
“He’s made his animus and his racism towards Haitians very evident,” she said. “It’s just vile how he treats Haitians.”
Republicans said they trust the president’s judgment on immigration issues, and on whether it’s safe to repatriate people who lose TPS to Haiti or in the future to Venezuela.
Workers
An end to TPS would be felt beyond the Haitian community — though Democrats and Republicans differ about whether that is good or bad.
In South Florida, jobs ranging from wheelchair assistants at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport to caregivers for the region’s older residents are filled by Haitians with TPS.
If they can’t legally work, the advocates warn people who depend on those services and the region’s economy would be hurt.
“Haitian TPS holders make Florida stronger,” demographer Phillip Connor concluded in a January analysis, estimating they are responsible for $2.6 billion in annual economic contributions, generate $300 million a year in federal and payroll taxes and $306 million in state and local taxes.
Wasserman Schultz said the fiscal impact of ending TPS and deporting Haitians would damage Florida’s economy, pointing to the care Haitian workers provide to older residents in their homes and in facilities. “So many people who are cared for by Haitian healthcare workers that without them, it’ll drive up the cost of healthcare, it will affect our economy, businesses’ ability to hire their replacements, and it will make an already expensive life much more expensive.”
Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick was the first Haitian American Democrat elected to the U.S. House. She resigned in April as the House Ethics Committee was preparing to recommend sanctions against her, and she is mounting a comeback attempt in the 20th District primary.
“We are carrying the economy in South Florida,” she said.
The Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association has warned of negative impacts from terminating TPS.
Some Republicans said the end to TPS would be good because it would create job openings, and U.S. citizens could fill them.
“I love my fellow countrymen too much to not give them opportunities that may be taken away from individuals who are receiving TPS,” Burck said.
Carbonara said the vacancies would lower unemployment for Americans.
“The young people who are looking for jobs will be able to get jobs,” he said. “If there’s less competition for people who aren’t allowed to work here, then the people that are allowed can get those jobs and actually have an income and be able to afford a life and buy a home and have kids.”
Republicans
An endorsement or an attack from Trump can help a candidate win or lose a Republican primary, and candidates in his party’s congressional candidates are showing little difference with him on TPS.
Some of the region’s Republican congressional candidates, asked about TPS, quickly pivot to expressing their overall support for Trump’s immigration policies.
George Moraitis, a former state representative from Fort Lauderdale and former Broward Republican Party chair, running in the 25th District Republican primary said he “support(s) President Trump’s efforts to secure the border to make sure that we’re not overdoing it in terms of illegal immigration. So he’s done a fantastic job with that.”
Scott Singer, a former mayor of Boca Raton and 25th District Republican candidate, said it is “within the president’s purview to end temporary protected status,” adding that Trump is “working to make sure that he’s building on the gains that we had in protecting the border.”
As to whether it is safe to repatriate people to Haiti, Moraitis said he would “defer to the president on that,” and Singer said the Trump administration “has a much better handle on the safety than I do, and I think it’s hard for us to second guess the president and the State Department in understanding the safety in other nations.”
There were some differences among Republicans. Andersen said “Haiti is a failed state” and “dangerous.”
He said the Trump administration “has the right to do this,” but added, “I don’t think that they should start rounding up Haitians and shipping people back to Haiti en masse.”
Rod Joseph, who is Haitian American, said a “media narrative” is responsible for the idea that Haitians don’t want to return to their country. “That’s wrong,” he said. “Haitians want to go back.”
Joseph, who finished last in a four-way Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in 2024, is now a Republican running in the 20th District. “I support President Trump’s decision to cease TPS because TPS should (be) cut for everybody,” Joseph said. “There’s no exception, including my fellow Haitian brothers and sisters.”
Democrats pointed to overall Republican support for ending TPS.
Elijah Manley, a District 20 Democratic candidate, said Haitians with TPS “are our friends, they are our doctors, our nurses, they work throughout our community and they contribute so much,” he said.
“To send them back to be butchered by gangs, to me is just cruel,” Manley said.
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.
