Members of Cambridge’s Haitian community expressed uncertainty and anxiety in advance of Tuesday’s expected expiration of Temporary Protected Status for Haitian nationals residing in the United States. While many of the city’s estimated 1,800 Haitian residents are U.S. citizens or are here through other programs, the entire community will be affected.
“A lot of people [in the Haitian community in Cambridge] are afraid. I’m a [U.S.] citizen and I’m scared to go out,” said Harry Jean, a paraprofessional at the Tobin Montessori School.
Jean-Dany Joachim, owner of Little Crepe Café on Oxford Street, was born in Port-au-Prince and emigrated to the U.S.. The long-time Cambridge resident, poet and community organizer has become a trusted point of contact for Haitian residents. He says the reality is that Haiti remains a very dangerous place.
“For my folks right now in Haiti – in the capital, where I was born – gang activities are such that people can’t move,” said Joachim. Losing protected status will exact a wrenching personal toll on people, he added. “I have spent my life in a community of immigrants, I know this situation very well. I know the feeling of despair when someone has no sense of options – when you hear your parents are in your [home] country and if something happens, you can’t visit them even in death.”
“Do Not Travel” in effect
The TPS expiration is occurring despite a Level 4 ‘Do Not Travel’ advisory for Haiti from the U.S. Department of State. Level 4 is the highest level of advisory, citing violent crime, terrorist activity, kidnapping, civil unrest and limited health care capacity.
Haiti was first given a TPS designation in 2010 after an earthquake devastated the southern part of the country, killing and injuring hundreds of thousands and displacing over a million people. TPS status was routinely extended by the Obama administration, but the first Trump administration attempted to end it. That effort was stymied in the courts and by the pandemic. In the wake of the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and the descent of parts of Haiti into lawlessness, the Biden administration extended TPS. The country is currently headed by a transitional council that has already said it will not meet a February 2026 deadline to hold elections.
Massachusetts has the third-largest Haitian population in the U.S., and about 45,000 TPS holders, more than 10 percent of the roughly 350,000 Haitian TPS holders. If protected status is revoked, all of them will lose legal status as well as work and travel authorization. They will have 60 days to self-deport, according to Matthew J. Tragesser, a spokesperson for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Tragesser encouraged people to use the CBP Home App to notify the government of their intent to leave. The U.S. government covers the cost of travel out of the country, provides a $2,600 exit bonus (it was $1,000 in late January) and in some cases, forgiveness for any accrued failure to depart fines.
The CBP Home app was formerly the CBP One app, used to schedule immigration appointments and submit documentation to seek entry or humanitarian parole at the border, said Sarang Sekhavat, chief of staff of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA). He said MIRA has heard from many people confused about the process, and “whether the government will go back on their promises to pay people [the bonus].” MIRA runs a webpage with information and resources for Haitian TPS holders.
The number of TPS holders in Cambridge could not be ascertained. The U.S. Census Bureau said there were 1,800 residents of Haitian descent in Cambridge in 2021, about one percent of the overall population. That made Cambridge the 9th-largest Haitian community in the state. The number is likely far larger now after the expansion of a humanitarian parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans (CHNV), under the Biden Administration. The city was unable to provide a count of Haitian residents with TPS.
But across Greater Boston, “the impact would be immediate and visible,” said Michel DeGraff, a professor of linguistics at MIT and director of the MIT-Haiti educational initiative. “Walk into hospitals and nursing homes, ride a taxi or Uber/Lyft, or visit many parts of the service economy, and you will see how deeply Haitian workers are woven into the daily well-being of Massachusetts.”
Efforts to extend TPS
There are efforts underway to postpone the expiration date or renew TPS for Haitians. Local and state leaders and advocates are pushing back in court and through other means.
Plaintiffs in Miot v. Trump have requested an injunction on the termination while related litigation continues, and Judge Ana C. Reyes of the federal district court of Washington is expected to make a ruling by Feb. 2.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., whose district includes parts of Cambridge, co-chairs the House Haiti Caucus and has been engaged in several efforts to extend TPS, including a discharge petition to force a vote on House Resolution 1689, requiring redesignation of Haiti for TPS status. The petition needs 218 signatures to move forward; as of publication it has 27 signatures, exclusively from Democrats.
Gov. Maura Healey on January 30 sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, pressing for the extension of TPS for Haitian nationals.
Healey also issued an executive order this last week restricting state cooperation with federal immigration authorities and filed companion legislation to make it unlawful for other states to deploy their National Guard in Massachusetts, allow parents to pre-arrange guardianship for children in the case of detention and keep ICE out of courthouses, schools, childcare programs, hospitals and churches.
During a City Council meeting on Jan. 26, City Manager Yi-An Huang spoke about the importance for Haitian TPS holders to obtain proper legal counsel, while Councillor Tim Flaherty promoted the idea of an on-call network of lawyers who could provide immediate support.
There are a number of local legal resources, such as the De Novo Center for Justice and Healing, the LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts, and the . Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS) Immigration Unit; GBLS has offices in Cambridge and Somerville.
But MIRA’s Sekhavat said “even without these kinds of things happening, we have never had the capacity to meet the demand for legal services.”
DeGraff urged the City of Cambridge and Cambridge Public Schools to expand a broad list of practical supports. Immigration legal clinics and rapid-response referral pathways; Know-Your-Rights campaigns in Haitian Creole; expanded Haitian-Creole-language capacity in schools; trauma-informed and Creole-accessible mental health counseling; and emergency stabilization funds for families facing food insecurity and housing crises.
Regardless of aid, DeGraff said the expiration of TPS would mean that “overnight, many would face the loss of lawful work, intensified fear of detention and deportation, and the constant anxiety of everyday life becoming dangerous – driving to work, going to a medical appointment, or simply showing up for a child’s school event.”
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