WE are among the many who feel a great sense of relief that the United States Administration has decided to keep in place the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) shielding Haitians from the horrors in their Caribbean home, at least until next February.

Earlier this year Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem announced it was prematurely ending TPS, effective September 2, 2025, leaving more than 500,000 Haitians without work permits and facing sudden deportation.

Large numbers of individuals and institutions, including this newspaper, beseeched the US Administration to consider the unspeakably frightful situation into which they would be plunging the Haitians, many after a decade living, working, and raising families in the United States.

The reprieve granted by the DHS came after the largest property service workers’ local union in the United States — the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) — took the matter further by successfully suing the Administration.

Judge Brian M Cogan of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, New York, ruled that, “Noem does not have statutory or inherent authority to partially vacate a country’s TPS designation,” thus preserving the Joseph Biden-era extension of TPS for Haitians until at least February 3, 2026.

Secretary Noem, in scrapping the TPS, had argued that conditions in Haiti had improved to the point at which there was no longer a need for TPS, effectively giving the Haitians two months to return home. But New York State Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, the first Haitian-American serving in the New York State legislature from New York City, countered that the, “Haitian recipients have escaped extreme terror and violence as Haiti continues to grapple with unimaginable instability — rampant gang violence, political collapse, and the displacement of over a million people”.

Her sentiments were echoed by the Family Action Network Movement, a Miami-based Haitian rights group, which warned: “With more than 4,000 Haitians already killed this year and armed gangs expanding to other regions of the country, Haitians face a dire situation marked by widespread violence, rape, kidnapping, armed robbery, lack of access to basic resources, and governmental collapse.”

Supporters stressed that if the US could find space for white Afrikaners from South Africa, whose situation did not even come close, Haitians were even more in need of protection by America.

They also contended that only two days before reiterating its decision to end TPS, the US Department of State renewed its travel advisory on Haiti, telling Americans, “do not travel to Haiti due to kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and limited health care”.

It added: “If you are a US citizen in Haiti, depart Haiti as soon as possible by commercial or other privately available transportation options…”

One big argument in favour of the Haitians was their history of contributing immensely to their place of refuge by serving as, “an outsized portion of our health-care workers, educators, small business owners, and essential front-line workers… in New York City and the entire nation”, according to the assemblywoman, the daughter of Haitian immigrants.

While the DHS says it “vehemently disagrees” with the judge’s ruling, it has not yet indicated any plans to appeal. We strenuously hope it will not.