Overview:
New York Legal professional Common Letitia James co-led a coalition of 17 attorneys normal in submitting an amicus temporary to defend Short-term Protected Standing for greater than 350,000 Haitians. The transfer comes because the Trump administration seeks to finish TPS and appeals a federal courtroom order blocking the termination.
NEW YORK — New York Legal professional Common Letitia James has joined a coalition of 17 different state attorneys normal in urging a federal appeals courtroom to protect Short-term Protected Standing (TPS) for greater than 350,000 Haitian immigrants.
In an amicus temporary filed with the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the District of Columbia, James and the coalition ask the courtroom to reject the federal authorities’s effort to elevate a decrease courtroom order that briefly blocked the termination of TPS for Haitians. The attraction follows a ruling by U.S. District Decide Ana C. Reyes that halted the Trump administration’s try to finish this system.
TPS permits immigrants from international locations going through armed battle, pure disasters or different extraordinary circumstances to dwell and work legally in the USA for restricted intervals. Haiti first acquired the designation after the devastating 2010 earthquake, and it has been renewed a number of instances since. Since Trump returned to the presidency in 2025, the Division of Homeland Safety just lately moved to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation.
James argued that ending TPS would destabilize households and hurt state economies, together with New York’s. Practically one in 4 TPS holders nationwide is Haitian, and not less than 56,000 Haitian TPS holders dwell in New York, in accordance with a press launch from the legal professional normal’s workplace. They contribute greater than $140 million yearly in state and native taxes and greater than $800 million to the state’s financial system, the discharge states.
“Daily, Haitian immigrants contribute immensely to New York, from working in our faculties and hospitals to working profitable small companies,” James mentioned within the assertion. She added that stripping authorized standing from a whole lot of 1000’s of Haitians would “put households at risk and tear aside our communities.”
Latest submitting backs order that spared TPS
The submitting comes amid an escalating authorized battle over this system. Earlier this month, Reyes blocked the termination simply sooner or later earlier than TPS protections have been set to run out for roughly 350,000 Haitians. The administration has since appealed that call. Throughout a latest listening to, Reyes additionally addressed threats she acquired following her ruling.
Haitian elected officers, advocacy teams and neighborhood organizations have mounted a nationwide push to increase TPS, warning that ending the designation would separate households and deepen Haiti’s humanitarian disaster.
The attorneys normal argue that terminating TPS wouldn’t solely strip work authorization from a whole lot of 1000’s of Haitian immigrants but in addition scale back entry to employer-sponsored medical health insurance and create public well being dangers.
The case continues because the federal appeals courtroom weighs whether or not to pause the district courtroom’s order whereas litigation proceeds, a call that might decide whether or not Haitian TPS holders stay protected within the months forward.