NEW YORK, United States (CMC) – A Haitian-American legislator on Thursday welcomed a federal judge’s ruling in Brooklyn, New York, in favor of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian immigrants.
Last Tuesday, Judge Brian M Cogan of Federal District Court in Brooklyn blocked US President Donald Trump from ending TPS for more than 520,000 Haitians who are already here .
Cogan ruled that the president’s attempt to suddenly rescind TPS for Haitians, many of whom have lived in the United States for more than a decade, is unlawful.
The judge’s ruling preserves the Biden administration’s extension of TPS for Haitians until at least February 3, 2026.
“I commend the federal court’s decision to block the Trump administration from prematurely and cruelly ending Temporary Protected Status for Haitian nationals,” New York State Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, the first Haitian-American serving in the New York State Legislature from New York City, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).
“I applaud SEIU 32BJ, who led the lawsuit, and all legal advocates for standing up for justice, including our State Attorney General Letitia James,” added Bichotte Hermelyn, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, who chairs the Brooklyn Democratic Party.
32BJ of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the largest property service workers’ local union in the United States, sued the Trump administration, citing Trump’s “illegal efforts to vacate the Biden administration’s designation and expose hundreds of thousands of hard-working people, many of whom have spent decades living and working in the US, to deportation within just two months.”
Bichotte Hermelyn, who represents the 42nd Assembly District in Brooklyn, said Cogan’s decision “upholds our constitutional values; recognizing the horrific realities in Haiti, while defending the legal rights of Haitians who built new lives here, and have called the US home for over a decade.
“This pivotal ruling affirms the fundamental legal principle that our government cannot arbitrarily upend the lives of immigrants, who have built their families, careers and communities in this country under the protection of law,” she said.
“Haitian TPS recipients have escaped extreme terror and violence, as Haiti continues to grapple with unimaginable instability: rampant gang violence, political collapse, and the displacement of over a million people,” she added, stating that Haitian immigrants have used the opportunity to live in the US “to indelibly contribute to the fabric of New York City and the entire nation -achieving and serving as an outsized portion of our health care workers, educators, small business owners, and essential frontline workers.”
The assemblywoman said the US Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) attempt to strip away these protections months before their lawful expiration was “not only cruel, but also a blatant and targeted violation of TPS designations.”
Therefore, she said Cogan’s ruling is “a vital reprieve from this unconscionable attempt.
“However, this fight is not over,” Bichotte Hermelyn warned. “We must remain vigilant against Republicans’ ongoing efforts to dismantle humanitarian protections through xenophobic mass deportation.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem recently announced the termination of TPS, leaving over 500,000 Haitians without work permits and facing deportation.
The temporary parole programme would expire for Haitians on August 3 and the termination would take effect on Tuesday, September 2.
But, in his ruling on, Cogan said that “Noem does not have statutory or inherent authority to partially vacate a country’s TPS designation.”
Therefore, Cogan ruled that Noem’s “partial vacatur must be set aside as unlawful under the (Administrative Procedure Act..”
He said that “plaintiffs’ injuries are actual and imminent,” stating that “they cannot be remedied by an award of money damages.
“If the partial vacatur remains in effect until the final resolution of this case, plaintiffs will lose their right to live and work in the United States based on what the court has already found was an unlawful action,” Cogan added.