By Maria Ortiz
Jun 28, 2024, 17:42 PM EDT
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas announced Friday the extension and redesignation of Haiti for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 18 monthsfrom August 4, 2024 to February 3, 2026, due to extraordinary and temporary conditions in Haiti.
The corresponding Federal Register Notice provides information on How to register for TPS as a new or current beneficiary under the Haiti extension and redesignation.
“Several regions in Haiti continue to face violence or insecurity, and many have limited access to safety, health care, food and water,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a press release.
The Biden administration official had previously suggested that The United States was considering not renewing Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti, which protects immigrants from deportation and grants them work permits while political crises or natural disasters in their countries of origin are overcome.
Finally and “after consulting with inter-institutional partners”, an 18-month extension was decided.
Haiti suffers from a crisis of violence caused by gangs and is also prone to serious natural disasters.
“Haiti is particularly prone to flooding and landslides and often suffers significant damage from storms, flooding and earthquakes. These overlapping humanitarian challenges have resulted in urgent and ongoing humanitarian needs,” Mayorkas said.
Requirements to request or extend TPS for Haitians
This extension will allow approximately 309,000 additional Haitian nationals (or persons without nationality who last habitually resided in Haiti) file initial applications for TPS, if they are eligible and if they established residence in the United States before June 3, 2024.
Haitians who were not residing in the United States before June 3, 2024, the statement said, are not eligible for such protection and “face deportation to Haiti if they do not establish a legal basis to stay.”
In fact, The United States resumed the deportation of Haitians by air in April, after a nearly three-month hiatus from repatriating immigrants to the violence-stricken Caribbean country.
Deportations of Haitian immigrants from the US had been suspended after the escalation of violence that led to the resignation of Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
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