By now, Amda is closely acquainted with instability. It’s the word that’s often used to describe her native Haiti, which has been all but torn apart by gangs and natural disasters. Although her new home of Massachusetts has brought relief from those challenges, “instability” still describes her time in the United States.
Amda moved to Massachusetts with her family in August 2023, entering the country through a Biden-era humanitarian program. In 2025, the Trump administration canceled that program, and she applied for temporary protected status (TPS), which similarly provided defense against deportation, a work permit, and some peace of mind.
“When we did the application for TPS, we thought it would give us some time to figure out what we should do,” Amda says. She requested that her full name be withheld for fear of being targeted by immigration officials.
Why We Wrote This
The loss of temporary status for some 334,000 Haitian and Syrian immigrants has families weighing other options, which generally don’t include returning to their troubled countries. Massachusetts’ large Haitian community has the support of those who recognize the potential impact of its absence.
But now, she, her family, and hundreds of thousands more, face instability once again.
TPS was officially slated to end this week for some 334,000 Haitians and Syrians, after the Supreme Court in June upheld the government’s bid to rescind protections. Those who have lived and worked in the U.S. under the program now face revoked work authorization and possible deportation. The Trump administration has long seen TPS, which the government grants to foreigners for whom returning home is unsafe, as a back door to remain in the country long-term.
“Temporary Protected Status is exactly that – temporary,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson wrote in a statement. “For too long, TPS has been allowed to function as a de facto amnesty program despite Congress never intending it to be permanent.”
Some confusion remains about whether the program has truly ended yet, as lawyers and the government trade different interpretations of the Supreme Court’s decision. Regardless, few places will feel the ripples of the decision more than Massachusetts, where some 66,600 Haitian immigrants, including 22,600 TPS holders, live. Immigrant advocates here describe the country’s third-largest Haitian population rushing to make plans for an unknown future: giving up guardianship of their American-born children, contemplating international moves, and, in many cases, simply hoping that Immigration and Customs Enforcement doesn’t knock on their doors.
“It is no longer simply an immigration policy issue,” says Pastor Dieufort Fleurissaint, who runs the True Alliance Center in Boston, a faith-based immigrant advocacy organization. “It is becoming a workforce, family stability, healthcare, [and] housing [issue].”
Herbert Villarraga/Reuters
Country in crisis
For Amda, one thing is clear: Returning to Haiti is not an option.
It’s not that she doesn’t want to. In Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, she worked as a pharmacist and doctor. She dreams of one day returning as an anesthesiologist and helping her homeland recover.
But life in Haiti became untenable when her family became a target for gangs. The assassination of its last elected president, in 2021, plunged Haiti into a violent crisis. Gangs have seized up to 90% of Port-au-Prince, according to the United Nations, displacing some 1.5 million people nationally. The economy is in tatters, and food insecurity is widespread. The U.S. State Department recommends against traveling there for “any reason” because of “the risk of crime, terrorism, kidnapping, unrest, and limited health care.”
“There’s no way for us to live there. Most of our family had to leave the country as well,” she says. Living in Haiti, “you’re in survival mode. It’s not really a life.”
Haiti first received TPS designation in 2010, after a 7 magnitude earthquake devastated the island nation. The designation, originally for 18 months, had been repeatedly extended since. Although TPS provides no separate pathway to citizenship or permanent residency, many of its beneficiaries have lived in the U.S. for decades.
To supporters of President Donald Trump, that’s created an unsustainable program with no clear end goal. There comes a point, they argue, when the U.S. cannot be expected to be responsible for disasters elsewhere.
“The Trump administration is taking the program and putting it back in the box of what it was supposed to be in the first place,” says Simon Hankinson, who studies immigration policy at The Heritage Foundation and served in the foreign service for over two decades. “Successive administrations have kicked the can down the road, and this never should have been allowed to get out of control.”
In canceling the benefit last year, the government said that the “situation in Haiti remains concerning” but that the U.S. “must prioritize its national interests.” Immigration officials plan to ramp up enforcement actions against Haitians, according to news reports. In a statement to the Monitor, DHS declined to comment on “ongoing or future operations.”
Amda and her family applied for asylum last year, anticipating that they might need another defense against deportation after their initial permission expired. For now, they’ve been shielded from deportation and have been able to work while their application moves through the system. Although the two programs similarly target humanitarian concerns, being a TPS holder does not guarantee asylum, which requires that applicants prove they’ve been persecuted on specific grounds.
Uncertain future
In mid-July, over 100 people gathered under trees outside Boston City Hall. Local advocacy groups and politicians had organized a campaign pushing not only a humanitarian argument for keeping TPS, but also an economic one.
Photo Courtesy of Immigrant Family Services Institute
More than 10,000 Haitians with TPS work in Massachusetts, according to FWD.us, a criminal justice and immigration policy organization. Immigrants make up 47% of workers tending to people in long-term care facilities here, a 2026 report from KFF said.
“It’s a complete disregard for human beings who have not only worked here, but also contributed so much to the economy,” says Geralde Gabeau, founder of the Immigrant Family Services Institute in Boston and a native of Haiti.
Amda, like one-fifth of Haitians living in the U.S., works in healthcare. Nationwide, 88% of TPS holders are in the labor force, according to the Latino Policy & Politics Initiative at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“We don’t have that security,” says Amda, who works as a medical assistant. “Even if you’re working at a hospital doing 12-hour shifts, helping people you don’t even know.”
Mr. Hankinson dismisses the economic arguments, saying that there will be plenty of demand from American citizens and immigrants who retain legal status for any jobs left vacant by TPS holders.
As of late July, Amda and her family still have work permits – and each other. When she first arrived in Massachusetts, she worried she would never get used to the bitter cold. Even the August heat was nothing compared with Haiti.
Now, her “heart is in Massachusetts,” and life goes on. She’s eyeing going back to school to train as a physician assistant, and she still wants to become an anesthesiologist. Her mother continues working. Her father is working on his English after recently starting classes. And her sister, Amda says, just got married.