The Trump administration is putting an end to Haiti’s temporary protected status designation, dealing yet another devastating blow to roughly a half-million Haitian nationals, some of whom have lived in the United States for more than a decade.

The Department of Homeland Security said on Friday that conditions in Haiti have improved, and Haitians no longer meet the conditions for temporary protected status, which grants deportation protections and work permits to people from countries experiencing turmoil.

“This decision restores integrity in our immigration system and ensures that temporary protective status is actually temporary,” a DHS spokesperson said. “The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home.”

It is unclear how DHS, in consultation with the State Department, reached such a conclusion. Currently the State Department warns Americans not to travel to the Haiti “due to kidnapping, crime, civil unrest and limited health care.”

The decision, while fulfilling a campaign promise from the president, puts more than a half-million Haitians at risk of being deported back to a gang-ridden country that hasn’t seen an election in nine years and where schools, hospitals and private homes regularly go up in flames. Although the current TPS designation will end on Aug. 3, the termination itself will officially take effect on Tuesday, Sept. 2.

With at least one in 10 Haitians in the Caribbean country displaced by deadly gang violence, anyone deported risks returning to a place where they have no home to go to because their neighborhoods have been overtaken by armed criminal groups, who are now in control of up to 90% of Port-au-Prince, and spreading to neighboring areas.

On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump promised to deport Haitians as he falsely accused them of eating their neighbors’ pets in Springfield, Ohio. Since returning to office, he has focused on dismantling Biden administration immigration protections for migrants. In doing so, he’s been testing his presidential powers by using archaic and seldomly enforced immigration laws to pursue his promise of mass deportations.

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal judge’s order preventing the administration from revoking a humanitarian parole program — for now — as the merits of the case are litigated in the courts. The program was put in place by the Biden administration for more than 500,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, and the Supreme Court’s decision made many migrants undocumented overnight while sparing those who were still protected by TPS.

Haiti itself is undergoing one of its worst periods of instability in recent history following the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise. Armed gangs are in control of vast parts of Port-au-Prince, the capital. They extract tolls for use of the capital’s main highways and roads and the violence has displaced more than 1 million people.

In its latest report on the country’s deteriorating situation, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the fresh wave of armed attacks that began on March 31 has made an already dire situation worse, one in which 5.7 million people — nearly half the population — face acute hunger.

There is also limited access to basic social services and education for children, the U.N. agency said, noting that as of April 30, more than 1,600 additional schools had closed. The number represents a 60% increase since the beginning of the year.

TPS allows people already in the United States to live and work legally because their homeland is deemed unsafe due to natural disasters or civil strife. Haiti, which is undergoing a complex security, humanitarian and economic crisis, was given the designation after its devastating Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake and has enjoyed several renewals and 18-months extensions.

The latest designation was granted by President Joe Biden and extended to February 2026 before he left office. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem revoked the decision and rolled back the new end date to Aug. 3. The new date meant that the administration had to decide within 60 days of the benefit’s end whether it would be extended, renewed or permanently terminated.

Just as the rollback decision is before the courts, Trump’s latest decision is also sure to be challenged, said lawyers who were expecting the termination ruling.

The Haiti decision follows a similar decision for Afghans, who were recently told they would lose the designation, as well as. for an estimated 350,000 Venezuelans.

In 2017, Trump tried ending TPS for Haiti and a handful of other countries, but the process was successfully challenged in federal court.

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