Temporary Protected Status is set to expire for Haitians. That could be a significant loss to Long Island communities and employers.

The call telling her not to show up at work arrived one ordinary day this spring, just as she was preparing to start her shift. The woman said that after years of working as a home care attendant, her employer called to say her immigration papers would soon expire and she could no longer work without authorization, leaving her devastated.

The healthcare worker, who is Haitian and lives in Huntington, said she didn't even get to say goodbye to the patient, an elderly woman.

Today, the Haitian immigrant, 33, who is not being named to protect her privacy, lives on dwindling savings used to pay for bus fare, rent and food. She said she feels down about the prospect of having to go back to Haiti. She and her brother "came here to find a better life," she said in Creole through a translator. "But now ... there is nothing to go back to."

She is among the thousands of Haitians in New York who are legally permitted to remain in the country under a decades-old humanitarian initiative called Temporary Protected Status.

TPS, which has paved the way for many immigrants to enter the United States to escape civil strife and natural disasters in their homelands, is coming to a close for Haiti amid the Trump administration’s directive to end the designation for the country. New York State has 98,250 workers with TPS, with most coming from Haiti and Venezuela, according to a study from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

The end of the program for Haiti, which likely will occur unless a new law is passed in Congress, could send thousands back to the Caribbean island that has been consumed by gang violence, political instability and displacement.

On Long Island, the change could mean a loss to communities and employers, particularly in the already short-staffed healthcare industry.

"These individuals came here, and they didn't even come here without permission," said Nassau County Legis. Carrié Solages, who represents Elmont and is Haitian American. "They relied upon promises, they paid taxes, they worked, they stayed out of trouble for the most part, and now they're being done dirty."

Under TPS, certain Haitians can legally reside in the U.S. and are eligible for work authorization. Work permits given to Haitian TPS recipients had been set to expire on Friday, before a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered they stay in place until at least Monday.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision in June said the federal government could end TPS for people from Haiti and Syria.

The work permits have been extended before — most recently on July 1 and July 10 — but some employers have already started terminating employees, while others are hopeful for another extension, lawyers said. On July 30, the employment authorization is expected to end for TPS recipients from several other countries, including South Sudan and Ethiopia, federal officials said.

The end of TPS exposes recipients to a risk of deportation in a "challenging environment" marked by stepped-up immigration enforcement, the firing of immigration judges and long adjudication times, legal experts say.

"All of this adds up to an extremely risky and challenging environment for immigrants to get due process, to get a fair shake in immigration court," Hofstra Law  School Professor Alexander Holtzman said.

The legal uncertainty is palpable on Long Island, where there are roughly 25,750 Haitians in Nassau County and about 14,485 in Suffolk, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates. It is not clear how many of the Long Islanders have TPS. There are more than 330,000 Haitians with Temporary Protected Status in the United States.

Pervasive fear on Long Island

When the Rev. Onick Bouquet looks out at his congregation at the Haitian Independent Methodist Church in Hauppauge on Sundays, he sees fewer people. A crowd that once averaged at least 50 people now typically numbers about 30. And they're very afraid, he said.

"They cannot go to work. They’re scared to go out now. You don’t see Haitian people now walking on the street because they are afraid," Bouquet said.

In communities with significant Haitian populations, like Elmont and Uniondale, some residents have forgone going to grocery stores out of fear of immigration enforcement raids. Barber shops that were once teeming with people are much quieter, some community members said. A few more desks sit empty at certain schools. 

People are terrified about returning to Haiti after selling everything they had to get to this country, community leaders say. Parents are working with lawyers to find guardians for their children in case they have to go back to Haiti and leave their kids behind.

Claire Leon, a Haitian community activist in Nassau and a healthcare worker, said people are scared to go to work and are fearful of being dismissed by their employers.

Recently, Leon said she took a few dozen area residents to meet with Rep. Laura Gillen to seek legal help. Soon after the meeting, she began getting calls from people in the group saying they were being fired from their jobs and asking her, "What am I going to do?" 

"We've been punished, and that's how my people feel. It's a punishment," Leon said.

Gillen (D-Rockville Centre), who represents one of the largest Haitian populations in the nation, said the potential end of TPS would be devastating.

She has introduced legislation to extend TPS for Haiti until 2029. The measure passed the House with bipartisan support, though the bill still needs to pass the Senate. Gillen noted that objections to the bill mainly center on TPS being a temporary measure that should not be used for extended periods. But Gillen said Haiti is currently too dangerous.

"Many of the people in the community that I've talked to who are here under TPS, they would love to go back to Haiti," she said. "They would like to go back to their home country and see it functioning again, but it's just not at that safe level yet."

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to Newsday that TPS should be temporary. 

"For too long, TPS has been allowed to function as a de facto amnesty program despite Congress never intending it to be permanent," the statement read. "The Trump Administration is restoring integrity to the immigration system by ensuring that individuals who no longer qualify for TPS either pursue another lawful immigration status, voluntarily depart using the Department’s available return assistance, or face removal in accordance with federal law." 

Significant impacts on healthcare

On Long Island, many Haitian people work as home health aides and certified nursing assistants, particularly in hospitals and nursing homes, healthcare experts say. An analysis from the nonprofit KFF found roughly 5% of the immigrant healthcare workforce across the country comes from Haiti. 

Stephen Hance, president and CEO of the New York State Health Facilities Association, said the area already doesn’t have "enough workers now to provide the essential care that our most vulnerable residents need."

"With this, if we were to lose these workers, it will just exacerbate an already existing staffing crisis, and will have direct implications for the ability to provide essential care," he said.

Some area healthcare organizations are already bracing for the impact of the potential change.

Northwell Health said in a statement to Newsday the end of work authorization will "affect the employment authorization of some of our valued team members, " though the health system did not have an estimate of how many employees would be impacted, as some workers might be able to obtain other forms of authorization such as asylum.

"Our priority is to treat every individual with dignity, compassion, and respect throughout this process," Northwell said in the statement. Catholic Health, Stony Brook Medicine, NYU Langone Health and Nassau University Medical Center did not respond to requests for comment.

In the Cambria Heights section of Queens, a stone’s throw from Elmont, Sabine French lives with her 19-year-old son and her 91-year-old mother, Solange.

On Monday through Friday, a home health aide from Haiti arrives every morning to help Solange, who has diabetes and arthritis. The aide tidies up around the home, cooks Haitian dishes, watches political shows with Solange and takes Solange to appointments.

Over the years, the two women have bonded over their shared Haitian identity, and the arrangement has led to a better life for Sabine French, who is both caregiver and daughter. But all that could change.

"She's concerned about losing TPS," French said. "Then, what would happen to her here? How would she pay her bills? Is she then supposed to live in the shadows?"

Legal battle over TPS

Haiti’s TPS designation started in 2010 shortly after an earthquake left hundreds of thousands of people dead and a collapsed infrastructure. Since then, the program has been extended several times.

In 2018, during the first Trump administration, the federal government sought to end Haiti's TPS designation, but a court decision halted that effort. The designation was then extended again during the Biden administration in 2021, citing risks of gang violence and other abuses. Today, 16 years after the earthquake, the hundreds of thousands of Haitians are able to live in the United States because of TPS — a program that was initially instituted in 1990 under the Republican administration of President George H.W. Bush. 

By 2025, in President Donald Trump’s second administration, then-Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem sought to end the policy for Haitians, saying some portions of the country were safe despite the ongoing violence.

A report from the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti found the country had a minimum 1,642 killings and 745 injuries in the first quarter of this year, with nearly 70% of that violence "the result of operations carried out by security forces against gangs, sometimes supported by a private military company using drones," according to a news release provided by the office. About 30% of the violence was committed by gangs, it said. The country also saw at least 292 rapes by gangs in that same time frame. Haiti has a population of about 12 million people.

After the Trump administration moved to end the program in 2025, five Haitian nationals sued and earned a pause from a lower court. The group said the Trump decision was made with racial animus toward Haitians and was a violation of the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, and that it was made without review from necessary agencies. 

But in June, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, ruled against the Haitian nationals, saying the administration was canceling the TPS designation because it objected to its long-term use. The ruling maintained   the TPS law doesn't give courts the power to review the administration's decisions about TPS designations.

'I want to go back with my honor'

Holtzman, the director of Hofstra's Deportation Defense Clinic, said the treatment of Haitians is part of a larger "duality in tension" in the American immigration system.

In one vein, Emma Lazarus’ sonnet saying, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," is inscribed onto the Statue of Liberty, he noted. Earlier, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, he said.

"So, I think you know that this duality in tension of whether to welcome immigrants into the United States, migrants, noncitizens and enrich our culture, or to decide to exclude certain groups, often based purely on nationality or race, you know, has been a tension since this country's founding, and unfortunately, in my view, we have a long way to go still," he said.

TPS, he said, has become the latest battleground where those themes are playing out.

Peter knew he needed to leave his homeland of Haiti. Every day, he heard of kidnappings, and the violence on the island had impacted his family. He often found himself staying inside because of gang activity. With the help of TPS, Peter, who asked that his last name not be used to protect his privacy, arrived in the U.S. He worked in a factory until he was told in June that he could no longer work there because of the possible end of the protected status.

Unable to work, he sold his small car. He said he fears walking on the street on Long Island once the TPS designation ends.

Now, he is planning to go back to Haiti if TPS is not extended, but he is scared.

"I came with honor," he said in Creole through a translator. "I don’t want ICE to deport me as a criminal."

"I want to go back with my honor," he said.

Newsday's Angelina Livigni contributed to this story.