by Rep. Rich McCormick
XTRA106.3FM – On April 16th, 2026, I faced one of the toughest and most controversial votes I’ve had during my time in Congress. A bipartisan bill to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian nationals came before the U.S. House, and I voted in favor of extending this status. Of note, this vote didn’t change anything, but set off a firestorm of controversy. After much research and discussion with experts in immigration law, my position has evolved.
I don’t experience the immigration debate as an abstraction. In January 2010, a magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and killed thousands of people. I spent a week in Haiti in the aftermath, working out of improvised wards with too few supplies and far too many patients, amputating limbs, fighting infection, and doing what little we could for children who had lost everyone. You do not forget those faces. You will never forget the sound of a city that has fallen on top of the people living inside it.
It was that earthquake that created Haiti’s TPS designation. Weeks after the disaster, the federal government designated Haiti for TPS because it was neither safe nor possible to send people back to a country that no longer had hospitals, housing, or a functioning government. For fifteen years, that protection let Haitians who were already here work legally, pay taxes, raise their families, and not be dependent on the government dole.
A fisherman repairs nets on a boat in Saint-Marc, Haiti, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
Since that time, the Haitian government has disintegrated. A missionary I support hid in the bushes while his church and home were seized by one of the hundreds of armed gangs. His pregnant wife got away. People in in his parish were killed. I discussed this in person with Secretary Marco Rubio. He stated that the only way to bring peace to Haiti would to be to eliminate about 40,000 violent criminals that terrorize the island.
Last year, the administration moved to lift this TPS designation. To understand what that means, it helps to know what TPS does. Congress created Temporary Protected Status in the Immigration Act of 1990 as a humanitarian tool. When a country is mired by armed conflict, a natural disaster, or other dangerous conditions, the Secretary of Homeland Security may designate it under TPS, allowing its nationals who are already in the United States to remain here lawfully for a limited and renewable period. While the designation is in effect, beneficiaries are shielded from deportation and can obtain authorization to work. Crucially, TPS is not a green card and not a path to citizenship. It confers no permanent status of any kind. When a designation is terminated, that shield is removed: beneficiaries lose their work permits and, unless they can obtain some other lawful status, such as asylum, once again become subject to removal from the country.
For Haiti, that designation has covered roughly 350,000 people. One important factor to note is that lifting the TPS designation would not, on its own, close off legal protections for Haitians already living here. Asylum is a separate avenue, and it does not disappear when a TPS designation ends. By statute, a person may be granted asylum if they are “unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” That is a real and meaningful path for Haitians who can show they are personally targeted on one of those grounds, and they can make their case before a USCIS asylum officer or an immigration judge. Many Haitians are in the process of obtaining asylum, and those who have arrived in the last year may still apply. Those who arrived more than one year ago and still haven’t applied still may be able to in certain circumstances. Lifting TPS wouldn’t change any of that.
In a press release explaining why the department decided to lift this designation, DHS stated that “Secretary [Noem] determined that, overall, country conditions have improved to the point where Haitians can return home in safety,” and a DHS spokesperson stated that “The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home. We encourage these individuals to take advantage of the Department’s resources in returning to Haiti, which can be arranged through the CBP Home app.”
While obviously, the earthquake is no longer a factor, Haiti’s government remains in a failed state, with rival gangs ruling in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Our own government recognizes this fact: the State Department maintains a level 4, “Do Not Travel” advisory for the country, citing “crime, terrorism, kidnapping, unrest, and limited health care.” Contrary to the former secretary’s statement, Haiti is not a safe country to return to or travel to. Further, I was alarmed by the Department’s push to get Haitians to return home immediately. Even in private conversations, I received no assurances that Haitians wouldn’t be mass-targeted for deportations, sending hundreds of thousands to a country where they would be greeted with a rifle in their face. They would likely have everything they owned confiscated, and face rape, murder, kidnapping, and destitution immediately upon arrival.
There is also a hard-headed fiscal reality here that conservatives, of all people, should not ignore. The roughly 200,000 Haitians working under TPS are not a drain on the system. By independent estimates, Haitian TPS holders contribute close to $6 billion a year to our economy and pay more than $1.5 billion in federal, payroll, state, and local taxes. They fill the jobs we are chronically short on: home health aides, nursing assistants, farm and food-processing workers, the people who staff our hospitals and harvest our food. Strip their work authorization, and you do not conjure replacement workers out of thin air. You take hundreds of thousands of taxpayers off the rolls and push them toward one of two outcomes: the underground cash economy, where they keep working but stop paying taxes, or outright dependency on government welfare, and it is their roughly 50,000 U.S.-citizen children, who do qualify for public assistance, who would feel it first. That is not fiscal conservatism. It is fiscal self-sabotage.
All of this is why I voted to extend TPS for nationals of Haiti back in April. Since my vote, however, certain factors have changed. Secretary Markwayne Mullin has settled into his role as the head of DHS, and, in my opinion, has done a much better job leading the department than his predecessor. He has kept his focus on enforcing the law and keeping Americans safe, rather than making his own public image the priority. After talking with the new leadership at DHS, I am confident that even with this designation being lifted, Haitians will not be indiscriminately targeted. Lifting TPS will instead be used to go after those who should be deported and have received orders from an immigration court to that extent. Further, those who stay in the country will still be able to receive work authorization through the asylum process. In fact, even before their asylum case is fully adjudicated, most will be able to receive a work permit. This alleviates my concern that we would be throwing hundreds of thousands of taxpayers onto the government doll.
In summary, Haiti’s TPS designation is now only shielding those who ought to be sent home. Those who are eligible for asylum, which in Haiti’s current condition would likely be most nationals of the country who have not committed a deportable offense. They will be able to make their case to a USCIS asylum officer or an immigration court and be able to stay and work in America. I appreciate the new leadership at DHS for making it clear that they will not initiate any mass deportation operation of these people who have followed the law and would be instantly victimized on their return. Should a measure return to the floor to extend TPS for Haitians, I would now vote against it. Supporting strong immigration enforcement and protecting human dignity are not mutually exclusive.
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