Haitians with TPS and their US employers live in limbo as work permits expire

For more than a month, Bobby Kuchinsky, manager of the Half Shell Raw Bar in Key West, Florida, has started each workday worrying whether he will have enough staff—or whether it may be the final shift for the Haitian cooks, waiters, and oyster shuckers who have worked there for over a decade.

On Tuesday (July 28), he was forced to suspend six of them after they lost their legal right to work in the United States. “I told them they were suspended. It was terrible. Not fun… they had fear on their faces, tears in their eyes,” Kuchinsky recounted.

Kuchinsky and thousands of other business owners live in a state of ongoing uncertainty due to the unresolved fate of work permits for Haitian employees with Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The turmoil stems from the Trump administration's decision to end TPS for roughly one million people from more than a dozen countries, including 350,000 Haitians who have lived and worked legally in the U.S. since 2010.

The decision to terminate TPS—which put these individuals at risk of deportation—was challenged in federal district courts. On June 25, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the government, allowing the TPS program to end. The cases were then sent back to lower courts, which typically take 32 days to issue rulings following the high court's recommendation.

During the waiting period, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) had extended work permits for Haitians. However, the agency often acted just as permits expired, granting only a few extra days, creating confusion and despair in the Haitian community. By Monday (July 27), no further extensions were granted, heightening fears not only of job loss but also of arrest and deportation to Haiti—a country the U.S. government deems unsafe for American citizens to visit.

Nearly 1.5 million people have been displaced due to gang violence in Haiti, where more than half of the nearly 12 million people require humanitarian aid. Over 2,300 people have been killed and more than 1,100 injured since January of this year, according to the United Nations.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated that TPS was created as a temporary program, and encouraged Haitians to claim a $2,600 check for a “free plane ticket home.” “It’s closing time, meaning you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here,” a DHS statement read.

Miriam Singer, CEO of Jewish Community Services of South Florida, said the organization has informed 18 employees that they are no longer eligible to work. “It’s a very difficult process. They are desperate and see no way out to care for themselves and their families,” she said. These Haitian workers previously provided in-home care for Holocaust survivors and the elderly.

For some TPS holders, returning to Haiti could be a death sentence. A 62-year-old male employee at Half Shell, who requested anonymity for fear of detention, said he left Haiti due to gang violence, arrived in the U.S. in 2016, and applied for TPS in 2020. “Every day feels like the last. I don’t know how I will survive—pay rent, buy food—if I can’t work,” he said.