June 29th, 2026
A Statement on the Termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians
For more than twenty years, I have had the privilege of working alongside Haitian communities, both in Haiti and here in the United States. I have shared in celebrations, mourned in times of devastation, watched younger generations navigate life and grow into leaders, and been inspired time and again by the strength and generosity of this community.
The recent Supreme Court decision allowing the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for roughly 350,000 people from Haiti is devastating. Behind that number are parents, children, caregivers, nurses, educators, entrepreneurs, and small business owners. They are neighbors, classmates, friends, and family who have built lives here, raised children, started businesses, cared for our loved ones, strengthened our communities, and called the United States home for years, many for decades.
Some arrived as children. Some now have children who are U.S. citizens. Some teenagers have spent nearly their entire lives in this country and do not even speak Creole. Others fled violence after losing everything and came here legally under a humanitarian program created precisely because remaining home was unsafe.
That reality has not changed.
The U.S. government continues to warn its own citizens not to travel to Haiti under its highest-level travel advisory because of extreme violence, widespread insecurity, and the inability of the Haitian government to protect its people. Yet it is now telling hundreds of thousands of Haitians that it is safe enough for them to return.
Those two positions cannot both be true.
That is why so many people struggle to see this decision as one grounded in an honest assessment of conditions in Haiti. Too often, the conversation about Haitian immigrants has been shaped by political messaging rather than facts, and by rhetoric that is false, dehumanizing, and needlessly cruel.
When we stop seeing people as human beings and instead reduce them to talking points, we lose sight of one another’s humanity. And when that happens, compassion gives way to fear, truth gives way to false narratives, and good policy becomes harder to achieve.
The decision to end TPS is not only harmful to Haitian families, it is difficult to see how it serves the long-term interests of the United States. Across the country, TPS recipients fill essential jobs, strengthen local economies, raise families, pay taxes, and contribute every day to the fabric of American life. Forcing hundreds of thousands of productive, law-abiding people into uncertainty does not make our communities, or our country, stronger.
Every nation has the right to manage its immigration policies. But we should expect those policies to be grounded in facts, informed by reality, and guided by a basic sense of humanity.
The measure of a nation is not how it treats those with power. It is how it treats those farthest from the power to shape its decisions.
My hope is that this moment challenges all of us to look beyond the headlines and beyond the politics. Let it challenge us not simply to debate immigration, but to insist that our policies be rooted in truth, guided by humanity, and worthy of the values we claim to uphold.
We should expect this of ourselves, and demand this from our leaders.
We can be better. We must be better.
Chad Bissonnette
President & Co-founder of Roots of Development