IMAGINE WAKING UP one day to find that the life you have built over many years is suddenly in jeopardy. This reality now affects approximately 900,000 people living in the US with humanitarian immigration protection known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The Trump administration has begun rescinding TPS—starting with Venezuelans and Haitians—stripping them of their humanitarian status and rendering them vulnerable to deportation. Uprooting lives, the administration is unnecessarily and recklessly tearing at the fabric of entire communities that are here legally and playing by the rules.
In response, on Monday, Lawyers for Civil Rights filed the first lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s rollback of TPS for both Venezuelans and Haitians. The federal court case was filed in Boston, home to the country’s third-largest Haitian-American population.
TPS protects about 500,000 Haitians and 300,000 Venezuelans. With TPS, they have rights and responsibilities: They can live safely and work legally in the US, but they must pay taxes, follow the rules, and remain law-abiding. Getting into criminal trouble disqualifies them under strict TPS conditions. They don’t threaten public safety because they are vetted by the federal government each time they renew their humanitarian status.
Unlike undocumented people who are pushed into the shadows to avoid detection and deportation, TPS recipients are fully known to immigration officials. Collectively, they are model community members.
TPS recipients reside in blue and red states across the US, with significant populations in Florida, Texas, New York, California, and New Jersey. In Massachusetts, over 17,000 people live and work with TPS, including at least 10,000 Salvadorans, 4,500 Haitians, and 1,300 Hondurans. TPS recipients are essential workers, small business owners, homeowners, and community members who help drive the economy.
Deporting nearly 900,000 TPS holders would be economically catastrophic. It would exacerbate labor shortages in key industries like health care, construction, and food services, driving up already high costs. The loss of workers would destabilize businesses and hurt local economies, making services and products even scarcer.
At least 380,000 TPS recipients are in the workforce, filling jobs in industries with chronic labor shortages. For example, more than 100,000 work in food services and accommodations, helping to keep restaurants, hotels, and other businesses running. About 50,000 work in health care, with TPS recipients well-represented in hospitals, nursing homes, and home health aide providers—all critical services, especially for the aging baby boomers. Another 50,000 play other vital roles in service industries.
Altogether, the economic contributions of TPS workers are an astounding $31 billion annually. TPS rescission will deprive the economy of this massive and much-needed boost. It will also burden taxpayers with the unnecessary costs of deporting hundreds of thousands of people who are already here lawfully and working for America.
Over the years, with the stability afforded by humanitarian protection, many TPS holders have been able to save and invest. TPS entrepreneurs have launched their own businesses and created work opportunities for other Americans. People with TPS have started shops and restaurants, injecting new life into Main Street. This fuels the revitalization of neighborhoods that would otherwise struggle with stagnation. The elimination of TPS would harm everyone in these communities.
TPS recipients are also taxpayers. In 2021, they paid nearly $1.3 billion in taxes, helping to sustain and support federal programs. They even pay taxes to support services they typically can’t access because many federal public assistance programs are reserved for US citizens. Yet, even after decades of living and working here, TPS recipients have no pathway to American citizenship. They are economically valuable and immensely productive, but the Trump administration has unfairly painted them as an undesirable nuisance.
In the past, Republican and Democrat administrations—from Bush to Biden—have recognized the importance of TPS by renewing it in response to crises abroad. Ending TPS now exacerbates the conditions that triggered humanitarian protection in the first place. If TPS is revoked, TPS recipients will be deported to indisputably unstable countries.
TPS-designated countries like Haiti, El Salvador, Honduras, Venezuela, and Ukraine are already grappling with conflict, natural disasters, and other hardships. They cannot guarantee the safety of deported TPS recipients. None of these countries have the infrastructure or capacity to safely or sustainably absorb thousands of people. By destabilizing vulnerable countries, TPS rescission will backfire, leading to even more migrants in the long run.
The unsafe conditions that deported TPS recipients would face underscore that the Trump administration’s actions are discriminatory and arbitrary. Terminating TPS raises serious legal and practical concerns: How can the government justify rescission, especially when conditions abroad have, in many cases, worsened?
Ending TPS is also problematic from a policy perspective because it’s the only immigration program that provides relief for people affected by climate change, including those fleeing storms and other environmental disasters. Many countries designated for TPS—like Haiti—have experienced hurricanes and other extreme weather events. As climate change intensifies, ending TPS would be devastating.
During the first Trump administration, organizations like Lawyers for Civil Rights sued to prevent TPS termination, arguing that rescission was motivated by discriminatory animus. Once again, legal action is needed to stop the latest attempts to revoke TPS. In times like these, the availability of free legal support from organizations like Lawyers for Civil Rights is among the most critical interventions to protect families and communities.
Make no mistake—this is a manufactured crisis, and the upheaval effectively condemns TPS recipients to undocumented status. This cannot be allowed to happen. Employers and business leaders must speak out against ending TPS. Congress must also take action to create a permanent solution for TPS holders, ensuring they are no longer in jeopardy. We must stand with our neighbors and co-workers who depend on TPS. This fight isn’t just about TPS—it’s about the rule of law, the economic fallout, and fairness.
Iván Espinoza-Madrigal is executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights.
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