The House voted Thursday to block the Trump administration from ending temporary deportation protections for Haitian nationals living in the U.S., approving a bill that would force the Department of Homeland Security to extend TPS for Haiti until 2029.
The bill passed 224 to 204, with all Democrats and 11 Republicans in favor. Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar, Brian Fitzpatrick, Mike Lawler and Don Bacon backed a discharge petition that forced the measure forward, and Lawler also cosponsored it. On Wednesday, Reps. Nicole Malliotakis, Carlos Gimenez and Kevin Kiley supported the procedural vote that allowed the bill to reach the House floor.
The measure was introduced last year by Democratic Rep. Laura Gillen of New York, who moved to keep alive a program that has sheltered more than 330,000 Haitian nationals from deportation and allowed them to work legally in the United States. Congress created temporary protected status in 1990 for immigrants whose home countries are considered unsafe because of armed conflict, environmental disaster or other extraordinary conditions.
Haiti’s designation has been extended repeatedly since 2010, when a devastating earthquake left more than 300,000 people dead and displaced many more. The Biden administration last extended the status in August 2024 for 18 months, but the Trump administration later said in a November termination notice that Haiti’s designation “is contrary to the U.S. national interest.”
The fight over the program has already moved into the courts. A federal judge blocked the administration in February 2026 from revoking Haiti’s protections one day before they were set to lapse, and an appeals court panel declined to freeze that ruling. The Supreme Court is now set to weigh in on the broader legal battle over the administration’s effort to roll back protections for immigrants from Haiti and Syria, putting the House vote on a collision course with the judiciary.
For Haitian families, the bill is a political lifeline as much as a legal one. But unless the Senate acts and the court fight breaks differently than expected, the fate of their status will keep being decided in two places at once: Congress and the courts.
