Press Release  AG Campbell Urges Court To Block Trump Administration’s Unlawful Termination Of Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status Designation

Boston — Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell today co-led a coalition of 18 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in Miot, et. al. v. Trump, et al. in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia. The brief supports a challenge to the Trump Administration’s unlawful attempt to terminate Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation and strip legal immigration status from hundreds of thousands of Haitians living and working in the United States.  

“Haitian TPS recipients in Massachusetts are hardworking members of our state economy, often filling critical roles in the health care and elder care industries. The Trump Administration’s unlawful attacks on Haiti’s TPS designation have no logical basis and are yet another example of his mistreatment of the immigrant communities that make our Commonwealth, and our country, stronger,” said AG Campbell. “I will continue to fight back against illegal policies that harm our state economy and threaten the wellbeing of the roughly 15,000 Haitian TPS holders in Massachusetts and the families, patients, and employers who rely on them.” 

TPS is a humanitarian immigration status created by Congress to protect foreign nationals who cannot safely return to their home country because of war, natural disaster, or other extraordinary conditions. TPS allows recipients to live and work in the United States as long as their home country has a TPS designation. Haitian immigrants have been eligible for TPS since 2010, when a devastating earthquake hit the country. The protections have continuously been extended due to unsafe conditions in Haiti, including widespread violence, homelessness, and starvation.  

On July 1, 2025, the Trump Administration sought to formally terminate Haiti’s TPS status without any evidence that the dangerous conditions in Haiti had improved and despite the fact that the U.S. State Department continues to classify Haiti as a “Level 4: Do Not Travel” country—its highest risk designation.  

In their brief, AG Campbell and the coalition argue that unlawfully terminating Haiti’s TPS status would separate families, damage economies, deplete workforces, increase health care costs, and harm public health and safety. Across states, thousands of TPS recipients providing important public services as health care providers, teachers, entrepreneurs, construction workers, and more would be stripped of their legal status and forced to either face life in uncertainty and vulnerability without legal protections or return to a country that continues to have exceedingly dangerous conditions that pose ongoing risk of violence and human rights abuses.  

TPS-eligible Haitians contribute $4.4 billion annually to the U.S. economy. Sixty-nine percent of Haitian immigrants aged 16 and older were members of the civilian labor force in 2022, with high rates of participation in health care support and service industries. Furthermore, a recent estimate found that 75,000 TPS-eligible Haitians work in labor-short industries.  

Massachusetts is home to one of the nation’s largest Haitian populations, including more than 15,000 Haitian TPS holders. Massachusetts’s Department of Developmental Services alone employs dozens of Haitian TPS holders, who provide care to some of Massachusetts’s most vulnerable populations. Stripping TPS recipients of their legal status and work authorization will cause irreparable harm to families, workforces, and state economies.  

In submitting their brief, AG Campbell and the coalition are asking the Court to grant the Plaintiffs’ motion to postpone the effective date of termination of Haiti’s TPS status, which would protect the hundreds of thousands of Haitians legally in the United States under the program while the litigation proceeds.  

Joining AG Campbell in submitting this brief, which she co-led with the attorneys general of California and New York, are the attorneys general of Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.  

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