Updated Aug. 15, 2026, 7:16 a.m. ET
A growing number of Haitians are making plans to leave the United States after President Donald Trump ended their Temporary Protected Status, with some seeking refuge in Canada.
More than 330,000 Haitians lived in the U.S. under TPS protections that ended Aug. 5 following a U.S. Supreme Court battle. Trump administration officials are now urging them to leave.
Some are heading north to Canada, particularly the French-speaking province of Quebec, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and migrant rights advocates told USA TODAY. French is one of Haiti’s official languages, though Haitian Creole is far more prevalent in the former French colony.
Haitians who try sneaking into Canada face “dire” consequences, said Jenn McIntyre of the nonprofit Canada-U.S. Border Rights Clinic, which advises migrants seeking to cross.
Under a March 2023 U.S.-Canada agreement, most migrants caught illegally crossing the border into Canada are immediately taken into custody by U.S. federal immigration authorities and can face deportation. Those who evade immediate capture may later qualify for refugee status in Canada.
“The stakes are so high at the border and a lot of people are not very well informed,” McIntyre said. “The consequences are profound.”
Migrant rights groups said they don’t have reliable statistics on the number of Haitians leaving the United States for Canada, but said anecdotal reports indicate an increase in interest since Trump signaled he would end TPS.
Meanwhile, the numbers of Haitians seeking refuge in Canada from all countries – including the United States – have fluctuated in recent years, according to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. The total reached 7,864 in 2024 before sharply rising to 14,192 the following year. For the first quarter of this year, 1,734 Haitians sought protection in Canada, which offers them its own version of TPS. More recent statistics were not available from IRBC.
In 2010, both Canada and the United States began allowing Haitians to live in their countries following a deadly earthquake and subsequent political upheaval in their country.
The Department of Homeland Security declined to answer questions about whether U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would target Haitians who lost TPS, but said anyone who leaves voluntarily can get a $2,600 payment and a free flight home.
“Temporary Protected Status is exactly that—temporary,” DHS said. “For too long, TPS has been allowed to function as a de facto amnesty program despite Congress never intending it to be permanent.”
Migration experts said Haitians who lost TPS also lost work authorization, forcing them to either remain in the United States illegally while working under the table, or to seek a new life elsewhere. In return for permission to live and work in the United States, TPS-holders were required to give the federal government their addresses and other personal information that could now be used to track them down.
“As policies change, as people are stripped of their status, as this chaos unfolds, if people no longer feel safe in the United States, of course they’re going to come to Canada,” said Julia Sande, a Canada-based immigration attorney with Amnesty International.
RCMP officials also confirmed an increasing number of Haitians seeking refuge in Canada. Many migrants see Canada as more welcoming than the United States under Trump, who made immigration enforcement and deportations a key plank of his 2024 presidential campaign.
In Springfield, Ohio, some Haitians have been called into ICE offices and fitted with GPS-based ankle monitors to limit their movements to within 75 miles of home. Trump and Vice President JD Vance said without evidence during the 2024 presidential campaign that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were eating pets.
The loss of TPS has left thousands of Haitians in Boston and New England reeling, said Sarang Sekhavat, the chief of staff for the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. Sekhavat said the situation reminds him how some Muslims living in the United States following the 9/11 attacks sought sanctuary in Canada.
Approximately 45,000 Haitians living in Massachusetts lost TPS, Sekhavat said.
“Everyone is still trying to figure out what’s best for them and their families now,” he said. “There certainly is that kind of option, whether it’s asylum or other pathways, to go to Canada.”
Many Haitians on TPS called the United States home for decades, Sekhavat said. They own homes and businesses and have started families, he said. Some Haitians who lost TPS have U.S. citizen children. And some migrant rights groups say the Trump administration may be condemning them to a life of poverty if their parents are forced to leave.
“The human cost will be felt all across America,” Jill Habig, the founder and CEO of the liberal-leaning civil rights group Public Rights Project, said in a statement.
Haitians with TPS work permission contributed about $4.4 billion annually to the economy through payroll and other taxes, Habig said.
Although Haitians covered by TPS lived all over the country, they were primarily concentrated in Miami, New York and Boston, according to the National Immigration Forum. Of the approximately 45,000 Haitians living in Massachusetts, 2,000 of those TPS-holders worked in nursing homes, said Sekhavat.
“A lot of folks – it’s very difficult to just pick up and leave,” Sekhavat said. “The idea of going back to Haiti, for the majority of folks, is just not really an option at all.”
The U.S. government says Haiti is so dangerous that Americans should not visit. It lacks an effective central government, and criminal gangs largely control the streets.
Haitians living in the United States are willing to risk a dangerous and illegal journey into Canada to avoid returning to their home country, according to migrant rights groups.
Asylum claims in Canada began surging after the U.S.-Canada border reopened to non-essential travel in August 2021 following the initial COVID-19 pandemic closure, according to Toronto-based Halani Immigration Services Inc.
Asylum claims for all arrivals peaked at 171,675 in 2024, according to the firm’s analysis, and began dropping sharply last year. The firm attributed the surge to pent-up demand caused by the pandemic, followed by the March 2023 closure of a popular “irregular” crossing site in upstate New York that forced asylum-seekers to find alternative routes into Canada.
Nearly 59,000 Haitians have sought asylum in Canada since 2015, the firm said.
Under Canadian law, refugees who sneak across the border and remain undetected for two weeks can then apply for asylum. That loophole prompted human smugglers to create a system under which asylum-seekers who pay roughly $1,000 each receive GPS coordinates and instructions on how to illegally cross into Canada, evade surveillance cameras and wait out the 14-day period in Montreal-area safe houses, Mounties told USA TODAY.
Compared to the U.S-Mexico border, there are fewer physical barriers blocking entry into Canada.
“These are people who already think they are going to die. And they just want a better life. That’s the hardest part, being a police officer. You feel for these people – a mother with a 10-year-old,” RCMP Cpl. Samuel Perreault-Magny told USA TODAY last month as he patrolled the U.S.-Canada border.
President Barack Obama first granted TPS to Haitians in January 2010 after the earthquake devastated their island. Trump unsuccessfully tried to end it during his first term; it was then extended under the Biden administration.
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