Fear grips Haitian communities after Supreme Court ruling unwinds protection from deportation

Fear grips Haitian communities after Supreme Court ruling unwinds protection from deportation 0 seconds of 1 minute, 32 secondsVolume 0% Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts Keyboard ShortcutsEnabledDisabled Shortcuts Open/Close/ or ? Play/PauseSPACE Increase Volume↑ Decrease Volume↓ Seek Forward→ Seek Backward← Captions On/Offc Fullscreen/Exit Fullscreenf Mute/Unmutem Decrease Caption Size- Increase Caption Size+ or = Seek %0-9 Next Up Morocco and Haiti fans celebrate together the outcome of their World Cup game 01:11 Subtitle Settings OffEnglish(US)_v Font Color White Font Opacity 100% Font Size 100% Font Family Arial Character Edge None Edge Color Black Background Color Black Background Opacity 50% Window Color Black Window Opacity 0% Reset WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan 100%75%50%25% 200%175%150%125%100%75%50% ArialCourierGeorgiaImpactLucida ConsoleTahomaTimes New RomanTrebuchet MSVerdana NoneRaisedDepressedUniformDrop Shadow WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan 100%75%50%25%0% WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan 100%75%50%25%0% 00:00 01:32 01:32 More Videos 01:11 Morocco and Haiti fans celebrate together the outcome of their World Cup game 01:05 Trump hails 'great' GOP Senate meeting after calling off bipartisan housing bill signing 01:38 'They went in there with a knife:' Trump claims 'vandals' damaged reflecting pool 01:25 'Nobody cares' says Trump as Energy Secretary attempts to get dates right 00:43 Black jaguar at Rio’s BioParque makes World Cup prediction for Brazil vs Scotland 01:28 Democrats pledge to continue pressing Trump and GOP on Iran war and affordability 01:01 Vance and Iranian officials arrive in Switzerland to launch talks on Tehran’s nuclear program 01:42 Senate approves a war powers resolution in a rebuke to Trump over Iran Close 1 of 7 | The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria. (AP Video by Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos) More Videos 0 seconds of 59 secondsVolume 90% Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts Keyboard ShortcutsEnabledDisabled Shortcuts Open/Close/ or ? Play/PauseSPACE Increase Volume↑ Decrease Volume↓ Seek Forward→ Seek Backward← Captions On/Offc Fullscreen/Exit Fullscreenf Mute/Unmutem Decrease Caption Size- Increase Caption Size+ or = Seek %0-9 Next Up Starmer challenger Andy Burnham sworn in as UK lawmaker 01:04 Subtitle Settings OffEnglish(US)_v Font Color White Font Opacity 100% Font Size 100% Font Family Arial Character Edge None Edge Color Black Background Color Black Background Opacity 50% Window Color Black Window Opacity 0% Reset WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan 100%75%50%25% 200%175%150%125%100%75%50% ArialCourierGeorgiaImpactLucida ConsoleTahomaTimes New RomanTrebuchet MSVerdana NoneRaisedDepressedUniformDrop Shadow WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan 100%75%50%25%0% WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan 100%75%50%25%0% Auto1080p1080p720p540p360p270p180p 00:00 00:59 00:59 More Videos Close 2 of 7 | The 6-3 decision overturns lower court orders and allows the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly end temporary protected status, a program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries. 3 of 7 | People hold hands and a Haitian flag during a vigil at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary immigration status, or TPS, for Haitians, Feb. 3, 2026, in North Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File) 4 of 7 | Viles Dorsainvil, executive director of the Haitian Community Help and Support Center at Rose Goute Creole Restaurant, sits with interpreter James Fleurijean, left, a board member of the Haitian Community Help and Support Center, in Springfield, Ohio, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski, File) 5 of 7 | This photo made from video shows residents watching members of a choir sing while attending a rally in support of Haitian people on Thursday, June 25, 2026, in Springfield, Ohio, after the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration is allowed to end TPS for Haitians and Syrians. (AP Photo/Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos) 6 of 7 | This photo made from video shows people at a rally in support of Haitians on Thursday, June 25, 2026, in Springfield, Ohio, after the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration can end temporary protected status for Haitians and Syrians. (AP Photo/Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos) 7 of 7 | People hold Haitian flags and candles during a vigil at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary immigration status, or TPS, for Haitians, Feb. 3, 2026, in North Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File) By GISELA SALOMON, PATRICK AFTOORA-ORSAGOS and CLAIRE GALOFARO Updated 11:43 PM MESZ, June 26, 2026 Leer en español Add AP News on Google Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Share Share Facebook Copy Link copied Print Email X LinkedIn Bluesky Flipboard Pinterest Reddit MIAMI (AP) — A 35-year-old nurse in Kentucky prepared her will. The single mother named a legal guardian for her four children and transferred her properties into their names. She felt like she needed to prepare for death — in case she gets deported back to Haiti, a country she fled at 9 years old. After the Supreme Court decided Thursday to allow the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disasters in Haiti and Syria, fear ricocheted through those communities across the United States. Hundreds of thousands of people now face the prospect of deportation. “I have been living with this internal fear, it’s like preparing for a funeral, just in case I die when going to another country,” said the nurse, who asked not to be identified for fear of being targeted for deportation. She is among about 350,000 Haitians granted Temporary Protected Status, many of whom have legally lived and worked in the U.S. for decades and have children who are U.S. citizens. Thursday’s decision, which is expected to take effect July 27, also applied to around 6,000 Syrians. It could also open the door to the administration unwinding protections for 1.3 million people from 17 countries. Temporary Protected Status allows people to live and work in the US Congress created Temporary Protected Status in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries deemed dangerous, because of disasters, civil war or other violence or instability. It permits people to work legally in the U.S. but does not provide a path to citizenship. It can be renewed in increments of up to 18 months if the homeland security secretary deems conditions unsafe for return. The Biden administration roughly doubled the number of people covered by TPS. The Trump administration ended those protections, insisting it was meant to be temporary, the countries are now safe and that President Joe Biden’s administration expanded the destination and poorly vetted its recipients. TPS beneficiaries have, by definition, been living in limbo and their futures have been especially precarious under President Donald Trump, but the Supreme Court ruling delivered what could be a crushing blow to living and working legally in the United States. Andy Burnham distanced himself from UK Prime Minister Starmer, but may be stuck with his policies 6 MIN READ Trump-backed Letlow faces Fleming in Louisiana GOP Senate runoff 4 MIN READ Appeals court rejects Trump EPA bid to abandon rule restricting deadly soot pollution 2 MIN READ 13 Haitians in Ohio have been in the spotlight before The Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, became a particular target of the administration during the 2024 campaign, when Trump spread fictional rumors that Haitians there were eating people’s cats and dogs. There is no evidence to support those claims. Still, the community has been under intense pressure ever since, said Viles Dorsainvil, the executive director of the Haitian Community Help and Support Center in Springfield. Thursday’s ruling added to the panic and chaos. People don’t know if they should withdraw all their money from the bank, Dorsainvil said. They don’t know if they can work, if their kids can go to school. Many are making preparations to leave their children who are U.S. citizens behind if they are sent away. “As a Haitian, I always say that life has not been easy for us, nothing has been easy for us and this is another chapter in our life. And we’ve been in that type of situation since after the presidential campaign when they came up with that type of conspiracy theory of us eating cats and dogs,” he said. “We’ve been targeted. We’ve been in the spotlight for their political agenda.” Dorsainvil said he’s focused on trying to keep people calm, telling them not to panic, not to feel hopeless or make desperate decisions that could further jeopardize them and their children. On Thursday morning, a Haitian mother of a 17-month-old baby boy who lives in Florida woke up to the news. “I was reading it and I just for a moment there I just felt like I couldn’t breathe, like as if something was just sitting on my chest, like my lungs couldn’t extend,” the 37-year-old said, her voice breaking. She asked not to be identified for fears of being detained and deported. “I did not expect this. It is so hard to accept. Maybe I am in denial but I think this can’t be real,” she said. “I had so much hope.” She arrived in the U.S. in 1995 when she was 7 years old and graduated from high school here. But she could not go to college because she did not have legal status. But in 2010 everything changed, when the U.S. granted Haitians protection after a catastrophic earthquake. The U.S. repeatedly extended that amid the gang violence that has consumed the country and displaced more than a million people. The Florida woman applied, and she was able to go to school and become a nurse. She was supposed to begin a new job in two weeks. Now she doesn’t know if she’s authorized to work. TPS holders are overrepresented in caregiving roles, and the long-term care industry, like nursing homes and facilities for disabled people, industry groups said, could be hit particularly hard as fear and uncertainty ripples across America. The nurse in Kentucky said she’s trying to focus on her work taking care of disabled people. But it’s hard to not think of the worst-case scenario, imagining being separated from her children, who are ages 13, 12, 8, and 2, and being sent to her home country that she left more than two decades ago. She reads in the news that there are gang wars, kidnappings, killings. “I don’t want to go there. I am very Americanized,” she said. “It’s like someone saying, hey, do you want to go live in a horror movie? Like, you know, no, I don’t.” Aftoora-Orsagos reported from Springfield, Ohio, and Galofaro contributed from Louisville, Kentucky. GISELA SALOMON Salomon is a Miami-based reporter who covers Latin America and immigration affairs for The Associated Press. Salomon es una periodista que desde Miami cubre asuntos latinoamericanos y de inmigracion. twitter mailto PATRICK AFTOORA-ORSAGOS Aftoora-Orsagos is a video journalist covering breaking news for The Associated Press. He is based in Columbus, Ohio. twitter mailto CLAIRE GALOFARO Galofaro is a national writer on AP’s investigations team. She is based in Louisville, Kentucky. twitter mailto