A Brief Overview: Temporary Protected Status

Rev. Dr. Lorne Hlad loves the Haitian people, living in Haiti and in the United States. He serves as the Senior Pastor at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, one of HTF's Covenant Communities. Lorne has seen HTF's work first-hand on immersion trips to Haiti, and he served as HTF's International Leadership Team Chair from 2018 to 2024. He longs to bring clarity to the importance of the Temporary Protected Status that immigrants from Haiti began receiving in 2010.

What is Temporary Protected Status (TPS)?

Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is a humanitarian immigration designation created by Congress in 1990. It allows people from specific countries already living in the United States to remain temporarily and work legally when returning home would be unsafe due to:

• Ongoing armed conflict (such as civil war)

• Environmental disasters (such as earthquake or hurricane)

• An epidemic and/or

• Extraordinary and temporary conditions 

TPS recipients are legally authorized to live and work in the U.S., but the status doesn't provide a legal pathway to citizenship. Recipients must pass comprehensive background checks, continuously reside in the U.S., and regularly re-register during every designated extension period. 

A Brief History of TPS for Haitians

Haiti was first designated for TPS in 2010 following the catastrophic earthquake that killed between 200,00 and 300,000 people and devastated much of the nation’s already fragile infrastructure. 

Since then, TPS for Haitians has been extended multiple times by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security because conditions in Haiti have repeatedly met the legal standard for protection. 

Key extensions and redesignations include:

• 2010 – Initial TPS designation after the earthquake

• 2011 – Extension due to ongoing recovery challenges 

• 2014 & 2015 – Continued extensions as rebuilding stalled and instability persisted

• 2021 – Redesignation following worsening political collapse and violence

• 2023 – Further extension in recognition of escalating humanitarian catastrophe and widespread gang control of the nation. 

These decisions were not political gestures. They were responses to documented realities: natural disasters, economic collapse, political instability, and increasing gang violence. 

In 2021, Haiti entered a new and terrifying phase after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise. His murder created a massive power vacuum, accelerating the breakdown of governance and public safety. 

What followed was not recovery, but collapse.

Haiti Today: A Failed State in Crisis

It is vital for people to understand the current reality: Haiti is currently functioning as a failed state. 

There is no stable government. Police forces are overwhelmed and under-resourced. Courts barely operate. Hospitals and schools are closing. Access to clean water, food, and basic necessities is increasingly scarce. 

Armed gangs now control most of the capital city, Port-au-Prince, along with major highways, ports, and entire neighborhoods. Kidnappings, sexual violence, and executions are widespread. Families are trapped in their homes or forced to flee. Hundreds of thousands are internally displaced within their own nation. 

Nearly all foreign humanitarian agencies have left. 

Under these conditions, deporting Haitians from the United States back to Haiti is not simply disruptive, it is dangerous.

For someone removed from the United States today, there is no realistic path to safe arrival, housing, employments, or medical care. There is no functioning system in Haiti to receive or reintegrate returnees. 

To deport people into this reality would place them directly in harm’s way. 

Who TPS Holders Really Are

There is a harmful narrative that TPS recipients are recent arrivals or disruptive to their community. 

In reality:

• Many Haitian TPS holders have lived in the U.S. for well over a decade

• Many are parents of U.S. citizen children

• They work as healthcare professionals, caregivers, construction workers, educators, and small business owners, and more.

• They contribute billions of dollars to the United States annually in taxes and economic activity 

• They are deeply rooted in churches, schools, and neighborhoods

Removing TPS would not only devastate families, but it would also disrupt communities, workplaces, and local economies across the country. 

Ending TPS Would be Catastrophic

Eliminating TPS for Haitians would have cascading consequences:

• Families would be torn apart

• U.S. born children could lose parents or be forced into unsafe conditions or the already stretched Foster System

• Employers would lose essential workers

• Haiti would face an influx of returnees with no infrastructure to support them

• Human suffering would increase dramatically 

This is not merely an immigration issue. It is a humanitarian, moral, and economic crisis in the making. 

The Haitian Timoun Foundation’s Ongoing Mission

While TPS directly impacts Haitians living in the United States, HTF’s mission and work remains firmly rooted in Haiti itself. 

HTF exists to bring hope and opportunity to vulnerable children and families by fostering generational change for the Haitian people. Even as Haiti experiences unprecedented devastation, the work through our Haitian partners continues. 

We remain committed to walking alongside communities on the ground, supporting schools, and helping fund long-term solutions that help children and future leaders flourish despite overwhelming odds. 

Advocating for TPS is not separate from this mission. It is part of the same story: protecting human dignity, keeping families together, and standing with the most vulnerable. 

A Call for Truth and Compassion

Temporary Protected Status was created for moments like this. 

It exists because there are times when sending people to their native country is simply not safe, not just, and not humane. 

We urge leaders and policy decision makers to maintain TPS for Haitians and invite our broader community to seek accurate information, resist fear-based narratives, and remember the real people affected by policy decisions. 

These are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. Neighbors and coworkers. 

They are not statistics. 

They are people, deserving of safety, stability, and hope. 

A Word to Our Supporters

To our investors, partners, and friends: your generosity has always been about more than programs. It is about people. Since Haiti first received TPS in 2010, TPS has been extended repeatedly  because conditions in Haiti have never truly stabilized, and today they have dramatically worsened. Each extension has acknowledged the same truth: Haiti is in crisis and needs our attention now more than ever. 

Your support helps HTF respond to this reality with compassion and action. While TPS protects Haitians and their families here in the United States, your continued partnership sustains life-giving work in Haiti itself. 

Thank you for standing with Haiti’s children and families, for choosing dignity over despair, and for helping HTF carry hope forward when the world feels fragile. You are cultivating hope and transforming lives!