Category: Haiti
‘Lawless activism’: Foreign-born Biden judge strikes again, protects Haitians from removal
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes — a foreign-born, Biden-appointed, lesbian judge who previously worked as a lawyer to fight the first Trump administration’s immigration policy and helped the U.N. secure asylum for so-called refugees — obliged her fellow immigration activists on Monday, blocking the revocation of Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status.
That status, which Haitian migrants have enjoyed since January 2010 and over 352,000 Haitian migrants enjoy today, was set to expire on Tuesday. Without Reyes’ intervention, the Trump administration would have been able to immediately repatriate many of those Haitians who have strained citizen resources and displaced American labor in cities such as Springfield, Ohio.
‘Temporary means temporary.’
Reyes, a Uruguayan native, claimed, however, that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem not only violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause when terminating the TPS designation for Haiti but had likely done so “because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants.”
Much of Reyes’ Monday ruling in the class-action lawsuit reads like a piece of immigration activist agitprop.
In addition to characterizing Haitian TPS holders as valuable contributors to American society and some class members’ removal back to Haiti as “devastating because they have no meaningful ties to the country,” Reyes questioned why it was necessary to let the status expire now:
Secretary Noem complains of strains unlawful immigrants place on our immigration-enforcement system. Her answer? Turn 352,959 lawful immigrants into unlawful immigrants overnight. She complains of strains to our economy. Her answer? Turn employed lawful immigrants who contribute billions in taxes into the legally unemployable. She complains of strains to our health care system. Her answer? Turn the insured into the uninsured. This approach is many things — in the public interest is not one of them.
The foreign-born judge suggested further that while the Trump administration “contends that, at most, the harms to Haitian TPS holders are speculative,” the State Department has issued travel advisories to Americans warning of the threats of kidnapping, crime, and civil unrest in the third-world nation.
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Photo by REBECCA NOBLE/AFP via Getty Images
Noem determined last year after reviewing country conditions and consulting with the appropriate government agencies that the island nation no longer met the conditions for a TPS designation.
Reyes, the same judge who tried unsuccessfully last year to torpedo the War Department’s ban on transvestites in the military, makes no secret of her animus toward the American-born DHS secretary throughout her ruling, using her conclusion, for instance, to cast Noem as a cold-hearted ignoramus.
“Secretary Noem, the record to-date shows, does not have the facts on her side — or at least has ignored them,” wrote the Biden judge. “Does not have the law on her side — or at least has ignored it.”
Reyes’ fellow activists celebrated her ruling.
“This was the right decision. There is no evidence that the Trump administration took the time to make a clear-eyed assessment of the risks these families would face back in Haiti before moving to revoke TPS,” Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, said in a statement obtained by GBH News. “On the contrary, the revocation appears to have been driven by racial animus and political ideology.”
“We can breathe for a little bit,” Rose-Thamar Joseph, operations director of the Haitian Support Center in migrant-overwhelmed Springfield, Ohio, told the Associated Press.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in response to the ruling, “Supreme Court, here we come.”
“This is lawless activism that we will be vindicated on,” continued McLaughlin. “Haiti’s TPS was granted following an earthquake that took place over 15 years ago, it was never intended to be a de facto amnesty program, yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades.”
“Temporary means temporary, and the final word will not be from an activist judge legislating from the bench,” added McLaughlin.
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Springfield officials, Ohio activists brace for end to Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status designation
Springfield, Ohio, featured prominently in 2024 election-time debates as a case study in the fallout of the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous immigration policies — a place where President Donald Trump suggested migrants were “eating the pets of the people that live there.”
The blue-collar city, which had a population of just over 58,000 in 2020, was flooded in subsequent years by tens of thousands of Haitian migrants — migrants whom Springfield Mayor Rob Rue admitted “taxed” the “infrastructure of the city, our safety forces, our hospitals, our schools.” According to the city, there are upwards of 15,000 migrants presently residing in Clark County alone.
‘Temporary means temporary.’
Many of the Haitians who overwhelmed Springfield and other American cities initially entered the U.S. illegally but were spared deportation on account of Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status. That status, which Haitian migrants have enjoyed since January 2010 and roughly 350,000 Haitian migrants enjoy today, is set to expire on Tuesday.
In anticipation of a potential immigration crackdown following the designation’s expiration date, Mayor Rue and members of the Springfield City Commission approved a resolution on Tuesday urging federal law enforcement to “comply with city policies on masks and officer identification to preserve the public peace within the community.”
Blaze News has reached out to Mayor Rue for comment.
Former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas reinstated Haiti’s TPS in 2021, then doubled down in subsequent years, expanding eligibility for protection along the way.
The Trump Department of Homeland Security announced in July, however, that Haiti’s temporary status was coming to an end.
“After reviewing country conditions and consulting with appropriate U.S. Government agencies, the Secretary determined that Haiti no longer continues to meet the conditions for designation for TPS,” said the announcement in the Federal Register. “The Secretary, therefore, is terminating the TPS designation of Haiti as required by statute.”
RELATED: Trump administration halts visas for 75 nations whose people gobble up American welfare
Photo by Luke Sharrett/Getty Images
While DHS initially sought to terminate the TPS designation for Haiti on Sept. 2, 2025, the termination was blocked and the status preserved until Feb. 3 by the New York-based U.S. district court judge overseeing the case Haitian Evangelical Clergy Association v. Trump.
In November, the DHS noted that “in compliance with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York’s final judgment, the current Temporary Protected Status designation period for Haiti ends February 3, 2026.”
The loss of status would not only mean that previously covered Haitians will lose their work authorization but that they could be given the boot.
Emily Brown, Ohio State University Moritz College of Law’s Immigration Clinic Director, told the Ohio Capital Journal, “At that point, they could potentially be arrested, detained, or put in removal proceedings unless they have already applied for some other form of relief they have in addition to TPS, or that they are applying for in addition to TPS.”
The ACLU of Ohio is among the liberal activist groups panicking over the prospect of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement targeting Haitian migrants in Springfield starting on Feb. 4.
“This despicable surge in lawless ICE officers descending upon Springfield will ignite swells of fear within the Haitian community, terrorize our black and brown neighbors, and cause considerable damage to citizens and non-citizens alike,” stated J. Bennett Guess, executive director of the ACLU of Ohio.
“The ACLU of Ohio urges state and local elected officials to do everything in their power to protect the 30,000 Haitians living in Central Ohio,” he continued.
Prior to Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes — a Biden-appointed lesbian judge who previously worked as a lawyer to fight the first Trump administration’s immigration policy — could decide to suspend the expiration of Haiti’s TPS.
Reyes may be emboldened, after all, by a ruling on Wednesday from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The panel — comprising three Democrat-nominated judges — suggested Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem exceeded her authority when ending the TPS for Venezuela and Haiti.
The appellate court’s ruling won’t have an immediate effect, as the U.S. Supreme Court cleared Noem in October to revoke temporary legal statuses while litigation proceeds.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in response to the appellate court’s ruling, “Temporary means temporary, and this is yet another lawless and activist order from the federal judiciary who continues to undermine our immigration laws.”
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