MIAMI, United States (AFP) — Leaders of the Haitian community in Miami on Monday slammed a Supreme Court decision allowing the Trump administration to strip people from that destitute country of a special status protecting them from deportation.

Last week, the high court said the Trump administration could end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians and some 6,000 Syrians without judicial review, although the impact of the decision could apply to migrants from many other backgrounds.

An estimated 350,000 Haitians live in the United States (US).

“Today is a painful moment for the Haitian community,” Vanessa Joseph, president of the National Haitian American Elected Officials Network,  said at a press conference in the Little Haiti neighborhood of Miami.

TPS provides protection from deportation for people from countries designated as unsafe because of war, natural disasters or other extraordinary circumstances.

Since Donald Trump’s return to the presidency in 2025, as part of his fierce crackdown on immigration, his administration has revoked TPS for migrants from more than a dozen countries, including Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Somalia.

In Miami-Dade County, home to large numbers of migrants, including some 110,000 Haitians, the high court’s decision has plunged many into uncertainty.

“We are hearing from families who are frightened and desperate for answers,” said Thamara Labrousse, executive director of Sant La Haitian Neighbourhood Centre.

“They are asking: will I lose my job? Is it safe for my children to go back to school? Will I be separated from my children?”

Jean Monestime, a Haitian American candidate for Congress, said the government should have to show that the situation in Haiti has demonstrably improved in order to justify ending TPS.

Haiti for decades has suffered from abject poverty, corruption, political instability and natural disasters like a devastating earthquake in 2010.

Its last president was assassinated in 2021 and has not been replaced. Haiti has not held an election of any kind since 2016. It is the poorest country in the Americas.

Since early 2024, Haiti has also been suffering a wave of violence and other crime from powerful gangs that control nearly all of Port-au-Prince and the country’s main roads.

With conditions in Haiti so bad, “for the government to make these decisions against people, it’s wrong. It’s plainly wrong,” Monestime told AFP.