When Trump entered office in January 2017, he criticized his predecessors for renewing national memberships every 18 months in the Department of Homeland Security’s Temporary Protected Status program, which protects many immigrants, including those from Haiti.

As president, Trump attempted to remove some countries from the program but was blocked from doing so by courts. Now, Trump has restated his desire to revoke protections from immigrants, notably Haitians, under the program should he retake the White House.

“Absolutely, I’d revoke it, and I’d bring them back to their country,” Trump said in an interview with NewsNation on Wednesday.

Trump’s recent vow comes after weeks of controversy surrounding allegations that his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), spread online that Haitian immigrants were stealing and eating neighborhood pets in Springfield. Vance has maintained that he heard “firsthand accounts” from Ohio constituents but has not provided proof.

What Trump is proposing

Local officials have denied that Haitian immigrants consumed or slaughtered animals in the community. However, Trump has not backed down and escalated his rhetoric this week with a call to “remove the people,” including immigrants from countries in addition to Haiti.

“We cannot destroy our country,” Trump told the outlet. “It doesn’t work. It can’t work. Has nothing to do with Haiti or anything else. It doesn’t work.”

When asked what would happen if immigrants’ home countries would not accept them upon their return, Trump said: “They’re going to receive them. They’ll receive them.”

Trump has promised to carry out the “largest” deportation in U.S. history. On Tuesday evening, Vance shared that a Trump-Vance administration would first focus on arresting and removing illegal immigrants with criminal backgrounds from the country.

“We’ve got 20, 25 million illegal aliens who are here in the country. What do we do with them? I think the first thing that we do is we start with the criminal migrants. About a million of those people have committed some form of crime in addition to crossing the border illegally,” said Vance during Tuesday’s CBS vice presidential debate. “I think you start with deportations on those folks.”

The GOP administration would then focus on making it more difficult for immigrants who entered the country illegally to work in the U.S., which would prompt an unspecified number of people to self-deport, Vance said.

“You make it harder for illegal aliens to undercut the wages of American workers. A lot of people will go home if they can’t work for less than minimum wage in our own country,” said Vance. “That’ll be really good for our workers who just want to earn a fair wage for doing a good day’s work.”

What is TPS? How did Trump try to end it?

Congress created TPS in 1990 to help countries that had been seriously harmed by armed conflict, famine, or natural disaster from having to repatriate citizens deported from the U.S. Countries could request TPS status from the U.S. government at any time, and if approved, their citizens in the U.S. could then apply for 18-month reprieves from deportation and permits to work in the U.S.

The program does not admit immigrants to the U.S. but rather protects those already here whose parole may be ending or face other circumstances.

As president, Trump said crises in those countries that began 20 to 30 years ago could not still affect each nation’s ability to repatriate its citizens years later.

When Trump took office, 437,000 immigrants were enrolled under TPS, according to the Congressional Review Service. By the time he left office, all 10 nations were still enrolled, and 320,000 immigrants were protected under TPS.

Although the administration tried to rescind some, it was blocked in court from doing so. Immigrant advocacy groups sued the Trump administration in multiple suits, arguing that affected immigrants had lived in the U.S. long-term, considered it home, and should not be forced to leave. The American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a Haitian newspaper, Casa de Maryland, and others launched five lawsuits representing immigrants from various countries.

Ultimately, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of the Northern District of California ruled in 2018 against the Trump administration in a case regarding El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan.

Chen, an Obama appointee, ruled that the Department of Justice was not likely to succeed because the Trump administration “did so without any explanation or justification in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.”

“There is also evidence that this may have been done in order to implement and justify a pre-ordained result desired by the White House,” wrote Chen in his order. “Plaintiffs have also raised serious questions whether the actions taken by the Acting Secretary or Secretary was influenced by the White House and based on animus against non-white, non-European immigrants in violation of Equal Protection guaranteed by the Constitution.”

In March of this year, the Congressional Research Service determined that 863,880 people in the U.S. were protected under TPS for 16 countries: Afghanistan, Burma, Cameroon, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, and
Yemen.

How Haitian immigrants became a campaign matter

In the 45 months since President Joe Biden assumed office, his administration has processed an unprecedented number of immigrants attempting to enter the country through unordinary means.

Amid worsening chaos and gang rule in Haiti, many people have fled to the U.S., as well as millions who have come from South America, Central America, and Mexico.

Immigration has surged as a top-of-mind problem among U.S. voters this year. As of September, immigration is one of the most-searched election-related items on Google.

However, the border crisis has calmed down significantly this year after peaking at nearly 250,000 illegal crossing arrests in December 2023. Arrests per month stood at roughly 60,000 in July and August, closer to historic monthly norms.

Since Trump and Vance began talking late this summer about immigration matters inside the country, including Haitian immigration in particular, voters have shown interest.

The Haitian migrants, similar to others, have resettled across the country as they wait for their asylum and immigration court dates.

At last count, more than 200,000 Haitians living in the U.S. had been approved for TPS, according to a Congressional Review Service report issued in September. That figure is up from about 60,000 as of 2010.