• Federal Judge Ana Reyes blocked the Trump administration from rescinding Temporary Protected Status from Haitian immigrants. The move temporarily stayed the administration’s plan to strip “temporary protected status from up to 350,000 Haitians, a status that allows them to legally live and work in the United States amid the turmoil in their homeland.” [The Guardian, 2/2/26]
• The Trump administration's restrictions on Haitians were accompanied by smears against the community. In November 2025, the administration announced that it would be “newly terminating the Temporary Protected Status designation of Haiti.” Three days later, Noem posted on social media, “I am recommending a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies,” referring to immigrants as “foreign invaders” who “snatch the benefits owed to AMERICANS.” The next month, the administration announced bans on travel to the U.S. from a number of countries, including Haiti. [Federal Register, accessed 2/5/26; Truth Out, 2/3/26; U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 2/2/26; Council on Foreign Affairs, 1/14/26] 
• In her judgement, Reyes countered the administration’s claims about Haitian immigrants. Reyes wrote, “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 healthcare system. Her answer?  Turn the insured into the uninsured. This approach is many things—in the public interest is not one of them.” She also determined that the plaintiffs’ “charge that Secretary Noem preordained her termination decision and did so because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants” seemed “substantially likely.” [U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 2/2/26]
• Right-wing media have long targeted Haiti with baseless smears. Since as far back as 2010, right-wing figures have suggested Haitians “swore a pact to the devil” and “pledged themselves to satan.” More recently, in the lead-up to the 2024 election, pundits baselessly accused Haitian immigrants of eating animals and called their resettlement an “invasion.” [Media Matters, 1/14/10 1/20/10, 1/12/18, ;9/10/24, 9/13/24, 9/17/24, 12/5/24]

What Judge Ana Reyes said: “Her [Noem’s] ‘national interest’ analysis focuses on Haitians outside the United States or here illegally, ignoring that Haitian TPS holders already live here, and legally so.” 

The Temporary Protected Status program, created by Congress in 1990 with bipartisan support, “allows people to live and work legally in the U.S. throughout the duration of their status.” Haiti’s TPS status was activated in 2010 after an earthquake and has been repeatedly extended amid gang violence that has displaced hundreds of thousands.

Right-wing media have claimed the legal status TPS confers is a “fiction” granted by Democrats:

• On his podcast, Donald Trump Jr. said Democrats brought in Haitians for “demographic replacement” and called TPS an “amnesty program for illegal immigrants.” Trump Jr. complained, “They were brought in by the Biden administration. … They were literally brought in there and placed there.” While the Trump administration has referred to TPS as “de facto amnesty,” the program “does not provide beneficiaries with a separate path to lawful permanent residence.” FDW.us has called it “a far cry from any sort of sweeping 'amnesty.'” [Rumble, Triggered with Donald Trump Jr., 9/9/24; Department of Homeland Security, 10/3/25; American Immigration Council, 11/25/25; FDW.us, 3/21/25]
• Right-wing host Hugh Hewitt: “I don’t know why they’re legal residents. They might have been given temporary protected status, TPS. That does not make them legal immigrants.” [Salem Radio Network, The Hugh Hewitt Show, 9/17/24]
• Fox contributor Newt Gingrich said it’s “a fiction” that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, are  “here legally.” Gingrich continued, “It's a gimmick of the bureaucracy.” Gingrich was referring to a comment from then-vice presidential nominee JD Vance, who had claimed while discussing Springfield during a debate that “we brought in millions of illegal immigrants” who were “granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand.” [Fox News, Hannity, 10/2/24; CBS, 10/2/24]
• Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro defended Vance’s claims about TPS, saying, “People claim asylum and then, magically, those people are deemed to have temporary protected status.” Shapiro explained, “Very often, those illegal immigrants are coming to the border, and they are being facilitated into the country by our own government under things like temporary protected status.” [Daily Wire, The Ben Shapiro Show, 10/2/24] 

What Judge Ana Reyes said: “Plaintiffs are five Haitian TPS holders. They are not, it emerges, ‘killers, leeches, or entitlement junkies.’” 

According to data analyzed by the CATO Institute, undocumented Haitian migrants “have an incarceration rate 81 percent below native-born Americans, while legal Haitian immigrants have an incarceration rate about 37 percent below native-born Americans.” Additionally, the city of Springfield reports that “Haitians are more likely to be the victims of crime than they are to be the perpetrators in our community.” Though then-vice presidential nominee Vance claimed in a September 2024 interview with CNN that murders in Springfield were “up by 81%,” WOSU Public Media noted that this reflects an increase “from five to nine.” 

Right-wing media have suggested Haitian migrants are dangerous criminals who will “kill all” white people:

• White nationalist Nick Fuentes: “Give me one good reason why we should not drop a nuclear bomb on Haiti. Because Haitians, when they encounter white people, kill all of them.” Fuentes continued: “We're talking about letting them into America. We're talking about picking them up and delivering them into America, presumably so that they can murder us. … They will not follow the law. They do not fear reprisal. They do not fear or feel deterred by law enforcement.” [Rumble, America First with Nick Fuentes, 3/14/24]
• Infowars host Alex Jones: Haitian migrants are “eating the dogs, the cats, raping, burning, murdering, just like zombies running around.” [Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 9/9/24]
• In a discussion about Haitian migrants, OutKick host Clay Travis compared migrants coming into the U.S. to “locusts” who will “become a plague upon your land.” Travis further claimed that migrants in the U.S are “not going to adopt any of your values” and are going to “bring whatever awful things had destroyed the country that we were in to your country.” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, 9/9/24]
• Fox host Jesse Watters declared a “Haitian invasion in Springfield” and said that a “reckless immigration policy … ruins the American experiment.” Watters continued, “Crime's up 142%. There's a record amount of car accidents. You're getting squeezed out of your homes. And the geese population has been decimated.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 9/13/24]
• Trump ally Laura Loomer complained that “we're supposed to give a shit about whether these people have resources to survive” after “we pointed out the fact that people in Haiti practice voodoo, and now they're eating people's pets.” She added, “I don’t think every third-world invader who comes into our country with their child is entitled to food, water, and shelter.” Elsewhere in the show, Loomer celebrated that Trump gave a speech “really echoing a lot of what I said in my monologue the other night about the Haitian invasion of Charleroi.” [Rumble, Loomer Unleashed, 9/24/24, 9/24/24]
• Fox host Sean Hannity said Springfield residents were calling the city a “dystopian nightmare” and “combat zone” due to Haitian immigrants. [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 9/13/24] 
• Fox host Lawrence Jones claimed Haitian migrants who came into the U.S. from Mexico in 2021 were “already getting into criminal activity” after crossing the border. “They were hosting their little gangs, taking women's purses,” Jones argued. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/24/25; NPR, 9/17/21] 

What Judge Ana Reyes said: “And though she [Noem] states that the analysis must include ‘economic considerations,’ she ignores altogether the billions Haitian TPS holders contribute to the economy. … Hence, she did not account for the $1.3 billion they pay annually in taxes, among their many other contributions.” 

According to recent data published by FWD.us, “Haitian TPS holders generate $5.9 billion for the U.S. economy annually.” Likewise, these TPS holders “annually pay $805 million in federal and payroll taxes and $755 million in state and local taxes.” Some small towns, like that of Charleroi, Pennsylvania, even report being revitalized by Haitian migrant communities and their contributions to the economy. 

Right-wing media have claimed Haitian immigrants are “draining” resources:

• While discussing Kamala Harris' 2024 campaign, Newt Gingrich said Ohio “can't cope” with Haitian migrants. Gingrich said, “They have a big problem. Everybody else goes to those grocery stores and they notice the prices, and they say, gosh, maybe it's not working. Or they look out at the number of illegal immigrants, the story coming out of Ohio today, about a town that has now had 20,000 Haitian illegal immigrants show up and can't cope with it.” [Fox News, Hannity, 9/9/24]
• Watters suggested Haitian immigrants in Springfield were “diving headfirst into the welfare system” and “bringing the town to its knees.” Watters said, “Springfield, Ohio, is being overwhelmed by a Haitian invasion, and it's bringing the town to its knees. The tidal wave of migrants are struggling to assimilate, leading to deaths, displaced residents, and surging insurance rates. They are also diving headfirst into the welfare system. Half of Springfield's Haitians have already enrolled in Medicaid. The only person who seems to care about the Americans in Springfield is Donald Trump.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 9/19/24]
• Fox Business guest Luke Lloyd questioned “how much this immigration or migration is causing these inflationary issues that we’re seeing.” Lloyd referenced Haitian immigrants in Springfield as an example, saying, “If you look to Springfield, Ohio, which is just two hours away from my Cleveland, Ohio, you had 200 people essentially on Medicaid back in 2022 that were of Haitian descent. Now you have 8,000 people. … Springfield's unemployment rate went from 3.5% in early ‘23 to 5% in just a year and a half. And that's all inflationary because they're all living on government benefits and spending government benefits money.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 9/16/24]
• Fox & Friends contributor Lisa Boothe said Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were “draining city resources.” She said, “Joe Biden, it was like the Oprah with illegal aliens — you get this free thing, you get this free thing, you get this free thing. And we have also seen in just cities and towns about how mass migration can bankrupt and can cause some problems. We’ve see this in Springfield, Ohio with all the Haitian migrants going to the city, draining city resources.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/11/25]

What Judge Ana Reyes said: “She [Noem] complains of strains to our healthcare system. Her answer? Turn the insured into the uninsured.”

“As of 2021, the 103,000 Haitian healthcare workers comprised the sixth-largest immigrant group in this field, where the demand for labor is high and understaffing and overwork is already the norm.” 

“Direct care services provide another example: seven percent of all direct care professionals in the United States are Haitian.” 

Far from straining health care systems, “Haitians are vital to U.S. health care,” The New York Times reports, filling “about 111,000 health care positions in the United States in 2023” in “an industry struggling to fill positions in small cities and rural areas as an aging America requires more long-term care.” 

Right-wing media have claimed Haitians have “overwhelmed” and “overrun” health care systems, resulting in a “humanitarian crisis” for citizens:

• Donald Trump Jr. said on his Triggered show that “the influx of Haitian migrants are also pushing health care services to the brink.” He continued, “The head of a local hospital said, ‘It isn't sustainable.’ I'm shocked. That's the head of a local hospital. Probably I'd say that's probably as mild a statement as they could probably make.” [Rumble, Triggered with Donald Trump Jr., 9/9/24]
• Fox News reported that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, had “overwhelmed” the health care system. Fox reported, “Haiti's gang violence and unrest prompted hundreds of thousands of Haitians to leave their country over the past four years. During that time, at least 15,000 of them came to Springfield, Ohio, under the Temporary Protected Status program that the Biden-Harris administration extended.” The report continued, “Now, the local health care system is overwhelmed by people who need vaccinations and basic care while schools are struggling to teach students who don't speak English.” [Fox News, Special Report with Bret Baier, 9/12/24]
• Fox guest Mark Tepper said Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, and other states had led to a “humanitarian crisis” in the United States. Tepper said, “If this administration is claiming they're doing this for humanitarian reasons, what about the humanitarian crisis that exists for U.S. citizens in these different cities, whether it’s Springfield or in Alabama or in Colorado where they can no longer access health care because the hospitals are overrun with migrants going there for medical care and there's no reimbursement for any of that care, so the physicians are working extra hard trying to see as many people as possible and the hospitals are now under water financially as well. So there's a humanitarian crisis going on right here in the United States for our citizens.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 9/12/24]
• Jesse Watters interviewed a resident of Springfield, Ohio, who said that “emergency rooms are overrun” because of Haitian migrants. “Our clinics, which is Rocking Horse, which is a federally funded clinic in town, their budget was decimated,” the resident said. “In Haitian, clinic means hospital. Our emergency rooms are overrun. Nobody is being compensated unless they have actually checked in with the health department and qualified for the Medicaid.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 9/12/24]