It’s like 2017 all over again when it comes to Donald Trump and his threats about ending Temporary Protected Status.
TPS, a federal program familiar to South Floridians, protects some immigrants from deportation for a limited time because of emergency conditions in their home countries, such as Venezuela and Haiti. To qualify, they must be living in the U.S. when their country is designated for TPS and must meet a certain cutoff date. It allows them to live and work legally in the U.S. but does not offer a pathway to permanent legalization.
In his previous term, Trump tried and failed to end TPS for immigrants from Haiti and Nicaragua. This time, the president-elect should think twice. His home state of Florida would be affected more than any other. Almost a third of about 863,880 TPS recipients now live in this state, many from Venezuela and Haiti, places with well-documented turmoil and failures.
TPS recipients have legal status in the country, even if they initially came without documents. And TPS recipients pay into the system, through taxes. An estimate from 2019 put the number at $4.6 billion in federal, state and local taxes each year.
As the Herald has reported, the number of TPS recipients in Florida has more than quadrupled in the past three years, up from about 65,000 in April 2021 to about 295,720 now. The Biden administration expanded TPS, including for about 472,000 Venezuelans, a move that translates into many more people who could potentially be affected if Trump targets TPS — a program created in 1990 under President George W. Bush.
TPS emerged as an issue in the 2024 Trump campaign during that shameful episode in Springfield, Ohio, in September, when Trump’s running mate (now Vice President-elect) JD Vance spread debunked conspiracy theories about Haitians eating pets, and Trump continued to spread that misinformation at a presidential debate. (“They are eating the dogs... they are eating the cats.”)
In early October, when Trump was asked whether, if reelected, he would revoke TPS for Haitians — at least those in Springfield — and deport them, he responded: “Absolutely. I’d revoke it, and I’d bring them back to their country.”
Vance also mentioned TPS at an Arizona campaign event in October: “What Donald Trump has proposed doing is we’re going to stop doing mass parole. We’re going to stop doing mass grants of Temporary Protected Status.”
All of that was some six weeks ago, before the election. Now, with a second Trump administration in the offing, theory could become reality. Just look at his appointments: immigration hardliner Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff for policy — he has criticized the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole program aimed at slowing the number of migrants at the southern border — and Tom Homan as the “border czar.” Homan led Immigration and Customs Enforcement when families were separated during Trump’s first term.
Immigration was, of course, one of the main drivers of Trump’s 2024 campaign. Much of the attention was focused on his vows to conduct mass deportations, especially of undocumented people. (About 11 million immigrants without legal status were in the U.S. in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.) But he’s also talked about a host of other immigration actions including ending birthright citizenship and restarting construction of the border wall.
And, after the fear mongering in Ohio, TPS is on the table, too. Last time, lawsuits derailed Trump’s efforts. Would that happen again?
We understand that TPS is, by definition, supposed to be temporary. That’s fair. But in many of these countries — Haiti, certainly, and Venezuela, too — conditions are just as bad as they were or worse. Returning TPS recipients to their countries could put them in danger. In Florida, where TPS recipients are our neighbors and friends and relatives, we should already know that.
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