MIAMI (AP) 鈥� 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 鈥� in case she gets deported , a country she fled at 9 years old.
After the 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.
鈥淚 have been living with this internal fear, it鈥檚 like preparing for a funeral, just in case I die when going to another country,鈥� 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鈥檚 decision, which is expected to take effect July 27, also applied to around 6,000 Syrians. It could also open the door to the for 1.3 million people from 17 countries.
Temporary Protected Status allows people to live and work in the US
Congress created 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鈥檚 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 , but the Supreme Court ruling delivered what could be a crushing blow to living and working legally in the United States.
Haitians in Ohio have been in the spotlight before
The , became a particular target of the administration during the 2024 campaign, when Trump spread fictional rumors that Haitians there were eating people鈥檚 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鈥檚 ruling added to the panic and chaos. People don鈥檛 know if they should withdraw all their money from the bank, Dorsainvil said. They don鈥檛 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.
鈥淎s 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鈥檝e 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,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e been targeted. We鈥檝e been in the spotlight for their political agenda.鈥�
Dorsainvil said he鈥檚 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.
Many TPS holders work in caregiving roles
On Thursday morning, a Haitian mother of a 17-month-old baby boy who lives in Florida woke up to the news.
鈥淚 was reading it and I just for a moment there I just felt like I couldn鈥檛 breathe, like as if something was just sitting on my chest, like my lungs couldn鈥檛 extend,鈥� the 37-year-old said, her voice breaking.
She asked not to be identified for fears of being detained and deported.
鈥淚 did not expect this. It is so hard to accept. Maybe I am in denial but I think this can鈥檛 be real,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 had so much hope.鈥�
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鈥檛 know if she鈥檚 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鈥檚 trying to focus on her work taking care of disabled people. But it鈥檚 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.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to go there. I am very Americanized,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like someone saying, hey, do you want to go live in a horror movie? Like, you know, no, I don鈥檛.鈥�
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Aftoora-Orsagos reported from Springfield, Ohio, and Galforo contributed from Louisville, Kentucky.
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