Amended Complaint - Saget v. Trump

Case 1:18-cv-01599-WFK-ST Document 21 Filed 05/31/18 Page 1 of 45 PageID #: 133
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
PATRICK SAGET, SABINA BADIO FLORIAL,

NAÏSCHA VILME, GERALD MICHAUD,
BEATRICE BELIARD, RACHELLE GUIRAND,
JEAN CLAUDE MOMPOINT, YOLNICK
JEUNE, GUERLINE FRANCOIS, LEOMA
PIERRE, HAÏTI LIBERTÉ, and FAMILY
ACTION NETWORK MOVEMENT, INC., Case No. 1:18-cv-01599
Plaintiffs,
FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT
v.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States

of America, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY,
KIRSTJEN NIELSEN, Secretary of Homeland
Security, and ELAINE C. DUKE, Deputy Secretary
of Homeland Security,
Defendants.
COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF
Plaintiffs Patrick Saget, Sabina Badio Florial, Naïscha Vilme, Gerald Michaud, Beatrice
Beliard, Rachelle Guirand, Jean Claude Mompoint, Yolnick Jeune, Guerline Francois, Leoma
Pierre, Haïti Liberté, and Family Action Network Movement, Inc. (FANM) bring this action
against Defendants Donald Trump, President of the United States of America; the United States
of America; the Department of Homeland Security; Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland
Security; and Elaine C. Duke, Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security. Plaintiffs seek to enjoin
Defendants’ November 20, 2017 decision to rescind Temporary Protected Status for Haitian
immigrants. Defendants’ decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haitians was
impermissibly infected by invidious discrimination on the basis of race and national origin and
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therefore cannot stand. Further, Defendants’ decision was based on a new legal rule that
represents a misunderstanding and misapplication of the laws relevant to Temporary Protected
Status, is arbitrary and capricious, and was put in place without notice and comment or other
procedural protections.
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
1. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) was created as part of the Immigration Act of
1990. 104 Stat. 4978, 5030 (1990). TPS permits individuals from designated foreign countries to
live and work lawfully in the United States when they cannot return safely to their homeland due
to armed conflict, natural disaster, or other “extraordinary” circumstances. See 8 U.S.C. § 1254a.
TPS is, and was intended by Congress to be, a reflection of American humanitarian values and
the United States’ role as a “beacon of freedom and hope for the world” to those displaced from
their homelands by havoc beyond their control. 126 Cong. Rec. H8687 (Oct. 2, 1990) (statement
of Rep. Moakley).
2. Such havoc hit Haiti on January 12, 2010, when the deadliest earthquake in the
history of the Western Hemisphere struck Haiti, the nation least prepared to handle one. At the
time, millions of people were packed in and around the nation’s capital, many living in poorly
made buildings stacked atop a fault line. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake threw the fragile nation
into chaos, killing as many as 200,000 people and displacing more than 2.3 million people from
their homes. It caused $7.8 billion in damages in a country with a gross domestic product of only
$6.6 billion.
3. At that time, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
designated Haiti for TPS because it was unsafe for Haitian nationals to return to their country
due to “extraordinary” conditions. The Secretary cited the collapse of hospitals, schools, and
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government buildings, as well as the shortage of electricity, water, and food. The TPS
designation provided employment authorization and protection from deportation to Haitians
residing in the United States as of the date of the earthquake. A year later, on May 19, 2011,
DHS re-designated Haiti for TPS because of new “extraordinary” conditions—in particular, the
deadliest cholera epidemic in recent history, caused by the very UN soldiers sent to Haiti to
protect its people.
4. Since 2011, DHS has regularly renewed Haitian TPS based on careful
consideration of the totality of “extraordinary” conditions affecting Haiti under 8 U.S.C.
§ 1254a(b)(1)(C), including housing shortages; the cholera epidemic; limited access to medical
care, food, and water; political instability; the fragile economy; security risks; gender-based
violence; and environmental risks. These conditions continue to this day.
5. On January 20, 2017, however, Donald Trump became President of the United
States. Well-known for his animus toward racial minorities and certain groups of immigrants, he
adopted a policy of ending current TPS designations—which benefit primarily members of these
disfavored groups—without due regard to the relevant conditions on the ground or the
procedures and policies of the statute protecting persons granted TPS under 8 U.S.C. § 1254a.
On November 20, 2017, DHS Acting Secretary Elaine Duke, applying President Trump’s
policies, disregarded the mandatory statutory criteria that previous Secretaries had considered,
and terminated TPS for Haiti.
6. This decision—a stunning reversal of course—affects the lives of over 50,000
Haitian nationals living in the United States, along with their 27,000 U.S. citizen children.
Among those affected are Plaintiffs, each of whom has made a home and a life in the United
States, and each of whom has relied on a settled expectation that he or she would be allowed to
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live and work in the United States until it was safe to return to Haiti. The termination of Haitian
TPS will jeopardize the health of Mr. Saget who because of his cerebral palsy is dependent on
his U.S. citizen brother for his personal and medical care. It will risk separating Ms. Florial, Ms.
Beliard, Ms. Guirand, Ms. Jeune, Ms. Francois, and Mr. Pierre from their U.S. citizen children,
as they will face the heartrending decision whether to bring their children to a country with harsh
and unsafe conditions or to leave them in the care of someone else for the sake of their own
futures and physical safety. It will force FANM to divert its limited resources to assist Haitian
nationals with their displacement from the United States. It will adversely impact the sales of
Haïti Liberté, the largest Haitian newspaper distributed in the United States, should a leading
writer be forced to return to Haiti.
7. DHS’s decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation violates the Fifth
Amendment due process and equal protection rights of current Haitian TPS holders. Further, it is
an arbitrary and capricious agency action that was undertaken without statutory authority and
without the procedures required by law; it is ultra vires; it was improperly issued without notice-
and-comment rulemaking; and it violates the Regulatory Flexibility Act.
PARTIES
8. Plaintiff Haïti Liberté, whose headquarters are located at 1583 Albany Avenue,
Brooklyn, NY, is the largest Haitian weekly newspaper distributed throughout the United States,
Canada, Europe, and Haiti. The paper offers weekly news and analysis of Haitian affairs by some
of the foremost writers and intellectuals in Haiti and its diaspora. The paper is published in
French, Kreyòl and English, reaching communities of nearly 2 million Haitians living in North
America and Europe. In North America and Europe, the paper is principally distributed through
newsstands or subscriptions. In the New York metropolitan area, Haïti Liberté distributes mostly
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in Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county, as well as Elizabeth, Irvington, East Orange, South
Orange and Newark in New Jersey.
9. Haïti Liberté relies almost entirely on the contributions of its writers and other
members of an affiliated organization—Club des Amis de Haïti Liberté—to write, photograph,
publish, and distribute its weekly newspapers. One of the newspaper’s leading writers and Club
des Amis de Haïti Liberté members holds TPS from Haiti. He is a skilled writer in both the
French and Kreyòl languages, and is one of only a handful of contributors able to write about
current events in Haiti. Based in New York, he is able to participate in the publication’s regular
editorial meetings, where the staff analyze the extremely complex and dynamic Haitian political
situation. All told, he contributes approximately 10% of Haïti Liberté’s weekly articles over the
course of a year. It would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for Haïti Liberté to replace
him should he be forced to return to Haiti.
10. Established in 1991, Plaintiff Family Action Network Movement, Inc. (FANM),
formerly Fanm Ayisyen nan Miyami, Inc., is a Miami-based organization founded to empower
Haitian women and their families socially and politically, and to facilitate their adjustments to
South Florida. For over two decades, FANM has been at the center of pivotal issues affecting
South Florida’s Haitian immigrant community.
11. The agency is small, comprised of nine staff members. Nevertheless, FANM
provides services to the entire South Florida Haitian community in the areas of Adult Education
and Literacy; Community Economic Development; Family Intervention and Empowerment;
Health Promotion and Prevention; Immigration Advocacy, Citizenship, and Public Policy; and
Youth Development and Leadership. For eight years, following Haiti’s January 10, 2010
earthquake, FANM has also advocated throughout the United States for extending TPS for
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Haitians in our country, and has assisted TPS holders throughout the United States to remain
lawfully in this country.
12. The decision to terminate TPS has had a significant adverse impact on FANM,
severely taxing the agency and employees’ time and resources. Many Haitians with TPS depend
on FANM for help. Haitians with TPS—a substantial percentage of Miami’s Haitian
community—have been and are increasingly concerned about their legal status, requiring that
FANM employees divert limited staff and scarce resources from other critical services it
provides to address concerns arising from the termination of TPS. FANM has thus been forced to
decrease their services in the areas of Adult Education and Literacy, Community Economic
Development, Family Intervention and Empowerment, Health Promotion and Prevention, and
Youth Development and Leadership. As a result of the fears now plaguing South Florida’s
Haitian community, FANM has also seen an increase in the number of child referrals to FANM’s
mental health program for treatment of anxiety and situational depression.
13. FANM has also had to re-allocate limited resources from its work locally to
advocate nationally for the continuation of TPS. FANM’s Executive Director, Marleine Bastien,
has made numerous trips to Washington, D.C. to speak with and educate members of Congress
about the impact that terminating TPS would have on the largest Haitian communities in the
United States, including the one in Miami.
14. The decision to terminate TPS has affected the community in which FANM
operates, and thus has strained the resources of other service organizations in that community,
further increasing demand for FANM’s services. As the termination date approaches, FANM
anticipates that the needs of the community it serves will only increase, requiring that FANM
devote even more resources to providing legal and immigration-related advice, and assistance to
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community members as they prepare to depart the United States. FANM will continue to re-
allocate its limited resources and provide these services at the expense of the other core services
that FANM was established to provide. Additionally, the Florida plaintiffs work with FANM in
advancing its mission, and FANM will lose the benefit of their assistance if they lose TPS and
return to Haiti.
15. Individual Plaintiffs Patrick Saget, Sabina Badio Florial, Naïscha Vilme, Gerald
Michaud, Beatrice Beliard, Rachelle Guirand, Jean Claude Mompoint, Yolnick Jeune,
Guerline Francois, and Leoma Pierre are all Haitian nationals and beneficiaries of TPS. If the
Court does not enjoin DHS from enforcing its termination of Haiti’s TPS designation, Plaintiffs’
TPS status will expire on July 22, 2019, ending their employment authorization and rendering
their presence in the United States unauthorized. Plaintiffs, each of whom has made a home and
a life in the United States, will face being rounded up, placed in removal proceedings, and
separated from their U.S. citizen children. Plaintiffs, who relied on a settled expectation that they
would be allowed to live and work in the United States until it was safe to return to Haiti, will
face deportation to a country where its own government recognizes that it lacks the capacity to
receive and protect an influx of returning nationals. Significantly, none of the Plaintiffs currently
have alternative routes to obtain lawful immigration status or otherwise remain in the United
States. Moreover, if deported, Plaintiffs will face a statutory bar preventing them from returning
to the United States for ten years, even to visit U.S. citizen children that they may be forced to
leave behind. 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9)(A)(ii). The circumstances of the Plaintiffs here who hold
TPS illustrate the irreparable harm that inevitably will occur if TPS is not continued and
Plaintiffs are deported.
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16. Plaintiff Patrick Saget resides in Brooklyn, New York. Mr. Saget is 48 years old
and has cerebral palsy. Prior to the earthquake, he lived with a paid caretaker in Haiti. After his
caretaker died in the earthquake and with no remaining family in Haiti, Mr. Saget was able to join
his brother in the United States. He now lives with his brother, Marc Saget, a U.S. citizen and
registered nurse, who cares for him. If Mr. Saget were deported, he would have no one to care for
his personal and medical needs in Haiti.
17. Plaintiff Sabina Badio Florial resides in Brooklyn, New York. Ms. Florial has
worked as a health home aide for Bristol Assisted Living for more than three years. In 2013, she
married Mr. Andre Florial in Spring Valley, New York. He is also a Haitian TPS beneficiary.
They have two young children, ages three and one. Both children were born in New York. Ms.
Florial is active in her church, the Baraca Baptist Church, and for a year has been a member of
the Women’s Choir.
18. Plaintiff Naïscha Vilme lives in Brooklyn, New York. Ms. Vilme is a successful
college graduate who recently completed a double major in math and psychology. She earned a
degree from York College in Jamaica, Queens and repeatedly made the Dean’s List. Before the
Trump Administration terminated TPS for Haiti, she was preparing for the future and exploring
graduate programs in clinical psychology. She was specifically considering Rutgers, New York
University, and the University of California, Los Angeles because of their strong programs in
psychology.
19. Plaintiff Gerald Michaud lives in Brooklyn, New York. In Haiti, Mr. Michaud
was a teacher both of art and martial arts. Prior to the earthquake, he visited the United States to
promote the culture and heritage of Haiti during the Haitian Independence Day celebrations in
Miami. He did this through teaching art and Haitian culture to young Haitians in the United
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States. For the last several years, he has worked as a security officer at LaGuardia Airport. He
also has a part-time job as a martial arts instructor.
20. Plaintiff Beatrice Beliard is 41 years old and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Ms.
Beliard works with patients with mental health issues at the Beacon, Pearl Care, and Human
Care agencies. She married a fellow Haitian TPS beneficiary in the United States. They have one
five-year old child, born here in the United States. Ms. Beliard sends regular and frequent
remittances to her surviving family in Haiti.
21. Plaintiff Rachelle Guirand is a 40-year old who lives in Brooklyn, New York. Ms.
Guirand is a certified nursing assistant. She has been a home health aide for roughly two years.
She has one eight-year old son born in the United States. If Ms. Guirand is deported, she will be
faced with the excruciating decision which will face all Haitians with TPS who have U.S.-born
children—whether to bring her son with her to Haiti, thereby depriving him of his right as an
American to live in safety in the United States, or instead to leave him behind in the United States
in the care of someone else for the sake of his own future and physical safety, but separating him
from and depriving him of his mother.
22. Plaintiff Jean Claude Mompoint is 59 years old and resides in Valley Stream,
Nassau County, New York. He has worked since 2014 for the Block Institute, a non-profit
agency dedicated to improving the quality of life for people with disabilities and their families.
He sends remittances to support several people in Haiti.
23. Plaintiff Yolnick Jeune lives in Palm Beach, Florida. She works three jobs to
support her five children, one of whom was born in the United States. Ms. Jeune is active in her
church, where she is the Sabbath school director and a member of the choir. She has been
employed since 2011 as a cashier by the Palm Beach School District, since 2014 as a behavior
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assistant helping special needs children, and since 2013 as a certified nursing assistant for Trinity
Healthcare Services. Last year, Ms. Jeune traveled twice to Washington D.C. on trips organized
by FANM around TPS. She visited congressional offices and testified in a Senate briefing
coordinated by FANM and Senator Bill Nelson’s office.
24. Plaintiff Guerline Francois lives in Coral Springs, Florida. Ms. Francois has
worked as a customer service representative for most of the last five years. Her husband, Erick, is
also a Haitian TPS beneficiary. They have a son, age fifteen, and a daughter, age six. Their
daughter was born in Florida. Ms. Francois is active in the South Florida Church of Christ in
Davie, Florida, attending twice a week. She sends money and clothing to support her two sisters
and their children in Haiti. Her husband, very concerned by the termination of Haiti’s TPS, has
become involved with FANM on the family’s behalf.
25. Plaintiff Leoma Pierre lives in North Miami Beach, Florida. Mr. Pierre has been a
dishwasher at a Miami Beach hotel for nearly four years. His wife, Fania, is also a Haitian TPS
beneficiary. Mr. Pierre has eight children in the United States, two of whom were born in the
United States. He regularly sends remittances to support loved ones in Haiti and frequently
attends meetings at FANM, which he strongly supports and values.
26. Defendant Donald Trump is the President of the United States of America. He is
sued in his official capacity.
27. Defendant United States of America includes all government agencies and
departments responsible for the termination of Haitian nationals’ eligibility for TPS.
28. Defendant Department of Homeland Security is an agency of the United States
government and is responsible for designating countries whose nationals may receive TPS, and
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for administering the benefit. Plaintiffs challenge the Department of Homeland Security’s
termination of its designation of Haiti as a TPS country.
29. Defendant Kirstjen Nielsen is the Secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security. She is sued in her official capacity.
30. Defendant Elaine C. Duke is the Deputy Secretary of the Department of
Homeland Security and formerly served as the Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security. She is the signatory to the notice terminating temporary protected status for Haitian
immigrants. She is sued in her official capacity.
JURISDICTION AND VENUE
31. This Court has subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331, as this
case arises under the United States Constitution, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5
U.S.C. § 551 et seq., and federal common law. This Court has remedial authority pursuant to the
APA, 5 U.S.C. § 706, and the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201 et seq.
32. Venue properly lies in this District because individual Plaintiffs Patrick Saget,
Sabina Badio Florial, Naïscha Vilme, Gerald Michaud, Beatrice Beliard, Rachelle Guirand, and
Jean Claude Mompoint reside in the district, and Plaintiff Haïti Liberté’s principal place of
business is in the district. 28 U.S.C. § 1391(e)(1).
FACTS
Background on Temporary Protected Status
33. In the Immigration Act of 1990, Congress established a procedure for the
Attorney General to provide Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to immigrants in the United
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States who are temporarily unable to return safely to their home country because of specified
statutory conditions.
34. The authority to designate a country for TPS now rests with the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS). See Homeland Security Act of 2002, Pub. L. 107-296, 116 Stat.
2135, 2142–45, 2177–2212 (Nov. 25, 2002) and the Homeland Security Act of 2002
Amendments Act, Pub. L. 108-7, 117 Stat. 11, 526–32 (Feb. 20, 2003).
35. TPS is not a designation that DHS may grant, extend, or terminate at whim.
Rather, the Secretary of Homeland Security must follow the rubric specified in the Immigration
Act of 1990 for determining whether nationals of a certain country need a safe haven in the
United States because of certain exigent circumstances.
36. After “consultation with the appropriate agencies of the Government,” the
Secretary of Homeland Security may designate a country for TPS “only if” she finds:
(A) [] that there is an ongoing armed conflict within the state and, due to
such conflict, requiring the return of aliens who are nationals of that state to that
state (or to the part of the state) would pose a serious threat to their personal safety;
(B) [] that—
(i) there has been an earthquake, flood, drought, epidemic, or other
environmental disaster in the state resulting in a substantial, but temporary,
disruption of living conditions in the area affected,
(ii) the foreign state is unable, temporarily, to handle adequately the return
to the state of aliens who are nationals of the state, and
(iii) the foreign state officially has requested designation under this
subparagraph; or
(C) [] that there exist extraordinary and temporary conditions in the foreign
state that prevent aliens who are nationals of the state from returning to the state in
safety, unless the [DHS Secretary] finds that permitting the aliens to remain
temporarily in the United States is contrary to the national interest of the United
States.
8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(1).
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37. When DHS designates a country for TPS, immigrants from that country are
granted protection from deportation and employment authorization, among other benefits.
8 U.S.C. § 1254a(a)(1).
38. To be eligible for TPS, the immigrant must be a national of the TPS-designated
country; must have been present in the United States on the date of the initial designation; be
otherwise admissible into the United States; and register within a designated time frame.
8 U.S.C. § 1254a(c)(1)(A); 8 C.F.R. § 244.2.
39. An immigrant is ineligible if she has been convicted of a felony or two or more
misdemeanors in the United States, 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(c)(2)(B), or if DHS determines that she has
committed a crime described in 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(2)(A), or is otherwise a danger to the security
of the United States. Id.
40. TPS protects only eligible individuals present at the time of the designation and
does not affect the government’s ability to deport subsequent entrants or ineligible individuals.
41. The Act gives DHS the authority to grant TPS for a period of six to eighteen
months, and requires a review of that designation periodically thereafter. 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(2).
42. At least sixty days before the end of the period of the TPS designation, the
Secretary, in consultation with the other agencies, must review the conditions in the foreign state.
8 U.S.C. § 1254a (b)(3)(A). The law sets forth a wholly non-discretionary procedure for
extending or terminating a designation. Unless the Secretary determines that a foreign state “no
longer meets the conditions for designation under paragraph (1)” of 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b) (quoted
in ¶ 36 supra), the period of designation is automatically extended for an additional period of at
least six months. 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(3)(C). The Secretary’s decision to extend or terminate
must follow directly from the result of this inquiry into conditions. 8 U.S.C. § 1254(b)(3)(B)-(C).
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43. TPS is “temporary” in the sense that designations are subject to periodic reviews,
but Congress did not restrict the number of times TPS can be extended. Rather than setting a cap
on the number of extensions, the statute requires the Secretary to extend the designation based on
his or her evaluation of country conditions. As long as the periodic review indicates that
conditions continue to require an extension, the Secretary must extend. See, e.g., 136 Cong. Rec.
S 17112 (Oct. 26, 1990) (“As long as the violence continues…, we should open our arms to
Lebanese already in this country who fear for their lives if they should return.”).
44. The Secretary’s decision to renew or rescind TPS must be timely published in the
Federal Register. The timing of that publication has important consequences for TPS recipients
because their employment authorization and other authorization documents expire when their
TPS expires.
Haiti’s TPS Designation under the Previous Administration
45. On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, destroying most of the
capital city, Port-au-Prince, and killing as many as 200,000 people (some estimates are higher).1
More than 2.3 million people were displaced, and many more were affected by the emergency
conditions caused by the earthquake.2 Hospitals overflowed with victims, electricity was cut off,
potable water was hard to find, and telephone service was severely affected. Food and medicine
were scarce. Roads blocked with debris and makeshift housing encampments set up by
1
U.N. OFFICE FOR THE COORDINATION OF HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS (U.N. OCHA), Haiti: One Year Later (Jan. 18,
2011), http://www.unocha.org/story/haiti-one-year-later.
2
For example, the earthquake destroyed close to 300,000 homes. See U.N. OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL’S
SPECIAL ADVISER ON COMMUNITY-BASED MEDICINE & LESSONS FROM HAITI, Lessons from Haiti: Key Statistics
(2012), http://www.lessonsfromhaiti.org/lessons-from-haiti/key-statistics/. It also killed 17% of the federal work
force, and destroyed or badly damaged most of the hospitals and close to 4,000 schools. See INTERIM HAITI
RECOVERY COMMISSION, Haiti One Year Later: The Progress to Date and the Path Forward 3 (2011),
http://www.lessonsfromhaiti.org/download/Report_Center/IHRC_Haiti_One_Year_Later_EN__original.pdf.
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earthquake victims impeded the transport of food, clean water, and medical supplies.
Designation of Haiti for Temporary Protected Status, 75 Fed. Reg. 3476, 3477 (Jan. 21, 2010).
46. Because of the combination of these “extraordinary conditions,” DHS designated
Haiti for TPS. Id.
47. The TPS designation allowed Haitian nationals who had been “continuously
physically present” in the United States since January 21, 2010 and had “continuously resided”
in the United States since January 12, 2010, to apply for TPS.
48. The initial TPS designation was effective through July 22, 2011. Id. at 3476.
49. Less than ten months after the earthquake, one of the deadliest cholera outbreaks in
modern history erupted, overwhelming Haiti’s public health system. Cholera, which has sickened
one million Haitians and claimed more than 12,000 lives since 2010, continues to debilitate Haiti
today. The cholera epidemic is a disaster in its own right, adding to and exacerbating the damage
caused by the earthquake.3
50. On May 19, 2011, DHS Secretary Napolitano both extended the existing TPS
designation for Haiti and re-designated Haiti for TPS in order to “allow[] additional individuals
who have been continuously residing in the United States since January 12, 2011,” including
“certain Haitians who arrived in the United States following the January 12, 2010 earthquake in
Haiti,” to obtain TPS. Extension and Redesignation of Haiti for Temporary Protected Status, 76
Fed. Reg. 29,000 (May 19, 2011).
51. Secretary Napolitano cited the fact that the earthquake had “exacerbated Haiti’s
position as the least-developed country in the Western Hemisphere and one of the poorest in the
3
See GLOBAL JUSTICE CLINIC, Extraordinary Conditions: A Statutory Analysis of Haiti’s Qualifications for TPS at 7
(Oct. 2017) [hereinafter GJC Report], http://chrgj.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/171025_Global-Justice-Clinic-
Haiti-TPS-Report-web-version.pdf.
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world,” where 80 percent of the population lived below the poverty line, and per capita gross
domestic product was under $2 per day. She specifically noted that the cholera outbreak in Haiti
evidenced the vulnerability of the public health sector, citing 199,497 cholera cases since the
earthquake, including 112,656 hospitalizations and 3,297 deaths. Id. at 29,001.
52. This 18-month TPS extension and re-designation were effective through January
22, 2013. Id. at 29,000.
53. The original designation in 2010 and the re-designation in 2011 were pursuant to
8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(1)(C) (“extraordinary” conditions), as opposed to 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(1)(A)
or (B), which are tied to a specific precipitating event.
54. TPS was extended for Haitian nationals for 18-month intervals again in October
2012, March 2014, and August 2015. Extension of the Designation of Haiti for Temporary
Protected Status, 77 Fed. Reg. 59,943 (Oct. 1, 2012); Extension of the Designation of Haiti for
Temporary Protected Status, 79 Fed. Reg. 11,808 (Mar. 3, 2014); Extension of the Designation of
Haiti for Temporary Protected Status, 80 Fed. Reg. 51,582 (Aug. 25, 2015).
55. For each extension, DHS outlined conditions arising from the January 12, 2010
earthquake in Haiti and its attendant damage to infrastructure, public health, agriculture,
transportation, and educational facilities. Each subsequent extension named the cholera epidemic
and the exacerbation of pre-existing vulnerabilities caused by the earthquake, including food
insecurity and a housing crisis, as contributing to the extension of TPS for Haitian nationals.
Donald Trump’s Racial and National Origin Animus

Towards Immigrants of Color and Haitians in Particular
56. Donald Trump campaigned for President on an explicitly anti-immigrant
platform.
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57. In June 2015, he started his presidential bid by disparaging South and Central
American immigrants: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. . . .
They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us.
They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”4
58. Then-candidate Trump repeated that sentiment in August 2015, when he said:
“The Mexican government . . . send[s] the bad ones over because they don’t want to pay for
them. They don’t want to take care of them.”5
59. In October 2016, then-candidate Trump responded to a presidential debate
question about immigration by stating: “We have some bad hombres here, and we’re going to get
them out.”6
60. Both during his campaign and after taking office, President Trump has repeatedly
compared immigrants and refugees to snakes who will bite and kill anyone foolish enough to
take them in.7 More recently, in a roundtable discussion with California officials, he referred to
immigrants as “animals.”8
61. After his election, President Trump continued to voice his animus toward
immigrants of color and Haitians in particular. In June 2017, during a meeting in the Oval Office
with then-DHS Secretary John Kelly and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, President Trump
4
Full Text: Trump announces a presidential bid, Wash. Post (June 16, 2015),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/06/16/full-text-donald-trump-announces-a-
presidential-bid/?utm_term=.6fa0170ce812.
5
Andrew O’Reilly, At GOP debate, Trump says ‘stupid’ U.S. leaders are being duped by Mexico, Fox News (Aug.
6, 2015), http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/08/06/at-republican-debate-trump-says-mexico-is-
sendingcriminals-because-us.html.
6
Katie Zezima, Trump on immigration: There are ‘bad hombres’ in the United States, Wash. Post (Oct. 19, 2016),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/19/trump-on-immigration-there-are-bad-hombres-
in-the-united-states/?utm_term=.546dcc77b96b.
7
See Dara Lind, “The Snake”: Donald Trump brings back his favorite anti-immigrant fable at CPAC (Fed. 23,
2018), https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/23/17044744/trump-snake-speech-cpac
8
Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Trump Calls Some Unauthorized Immigrants ‘Animals’ in Rant, N.Y. Times (May 16,
2018), https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/us/politics/trump-undocumented-immigrants-animals.html.
17
reacted to a document listing how many immigrants had received visas to enter the U.S. in 2017.
Upon learning that 15,000 Haitian people had received such visas, President Trump stated they
“all have AIDS.”9 During that same meeting, President Trump also learned that 40,000
immigrants from Nigeria had received visas to enter the U.S. in 2017. He reacted by stating that,
once they had seen the U.S., these Nigerian immigrants would never go back to their “huts” in
Africa.10
62. On January 11, 2018, during a White House meeting with several U.S. Senators,
the President disparaged a draft immigration plan that protected people from Haiti, El Salvador,
and some African countries, asking “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries
come here?”11 President Trump further denigrated Haitians, asking “Why do we need more
Haitians?” and ordered the bill’s drafters to “take them out.”12 In this meeting, the President
further expressed his preference for more immigrants from places like Norway,13 where the
population is more than 90 percent white. Haiti’s population, by contrast, is over 95 percent
Black.
9
Michael D. Shear & Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Stoking Fears, Trump Defied Bureaucracy to Advance Immigration
Agenda, N.Y. Times (Dec. 23, 2017), https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/23/us/politics/trump-immigration.html..”
10
Id.
11
Josh Dawsey, Trump derides protections for immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries, Wash. Post (Jan. 12, 2018),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-attacks-protections-for-immigrants-from-shithole-countries-inoval-
office-meeting/2018/01/11/bfc0725c-f711-11e7-91af-31ac729add94_story.html?utm_term=.b56f11cc896f. Other
senators have suggested the word used might have been “shithouse.” Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Trump’s Harsh Words,
Not His Plan for Wall, Dominate Hearing, N.Y. Times (Jan. 16, 2018),
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/us/politics/trump-shithole-shithouse-immigration.html.
12
Josh Dawsey, Trump derides protections for immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries, Wash. Post (Jan. 12, 2018),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-attacks-protections-for-immigrants-from-shithole-countries-inoval-
office-meeting/2018/01/11/bfc0725c-f711-11e7-91af-31ac729add94_story.html?utm_term=.b56f11cc896f.
13
Id.
18
63. In January 2018, DHS announced that it would make H-2A and H-2B visas for
Haitian nationals unavailable, citing “high levels of fraud and abuse,” without providing any
evidence to support this assertion.14
64. President Trump’s racial animus returns the country to a darker time in its recent
past when courts had to intervene repeatedly to protect Haitian asylum seekers against race and
national origin discrimination by former executive officials.
65. For example, after the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980, Pub. L. 96-212, which
implemented the United Nations Refugee Convention and allowed migrants with a credible fear
of persecution to apply for asylum in the United States, the Reagan administration implemented
a policy of interdiction of Haitian vessels on the high seas, intending to prevent Haitians from
receiving the greater procedural protections afforded to them on U.S. shores. Of the 22,940
Haitians the U.S. Coast Guard interdicted at sea between 1981-1990, the Immigration and
Naturalization Services (INS) considered only eleven qualified to apply for asylum.15
66. The discriminatory treatment of Haitian immigrants who did reach the United
States, particularly with respect to rates of detention, was extensively documented. See, e.g.,
Jean v. Nelson, 711 F.2d 1455, 1488 (11th Cir. 1983) (finding that the higher rates of detention
of Haitian immigrants compared to other nationalities was only likely to be accounted for by
chance “on the order of less than two in ten billion times”), vacated on legal grounds only and
adopting factual findings of panel opinion, 727 F.2d 957, 962 (11th Cir. 1984).
14
Yeganeh Torbati, Trump administration bars Haitians from U.S. Visas for Low-Skilled Work, Reuters (Jan. 17,
2018), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-haiti/trump-administration-bars-haitians-from-u-s-visas-
for-low-skilled-work-idUSKBN1F702O.
15
Ruth E. Wasem, Cong. Research Serv., RS21349, U.S. Immigration Policy on Haitian Migrants 4 (May 17,
2011).
19
67. Haitians were also unlawfully denied their statutory and treaty rights to a hearing
before an immigration judge in exclusion proceedings on their claims for political asylum.
Sannon v. United States, 427 F. Supp. 1270 (S.D. Fla. 1977), vacated and remanded on other
grounds, 566 F.2d 104 (5th Cir. 1978).
68. They were also unlawfully denied their right to notice of the procedures that the
government intended to use against them in exclusion proceedings. Sannon v. United States, 460
F. Supp. 458 (S.D. Fla. 1978).
69. They were also unlawfully denied the right to work during the pendency of their
asylum claims. National Council of Churches v. Egan, Case No. 79-cv-02959 (S.D. Fla. 1979).
70. They were unlawfully denied access to information to support their asylum
claims. National Council of Churches v. INS, Case No. 78-cv-05163 (S.D. Fla. 1979).
71. They were unlawfully denied the right to present their asylum claims, and were
discriminatorily singled out and subjected to a special “Haitian Program” to remove them
without due process from the United States. Haitian Refugee Center v. Civiletti, 503 F. Supp.
442 (S.D. Fla. 1980), aff’d as modified sub nom. Haitian Refugee Center v. Smith, 676 F.2d 1023
(5th Cir. 1982).
72. They have even been unlawfully denied their right to counsel and fair process
during exclusion hearings by being shipped to remote areas of the United States. Louis v.
Meissner, 530 F. Supp. 924, 926 (S.D. Fla. 1981).
73. As these cases demonstrate, the courts have played a crucial role in protecting this
vulnerable class from violations of the laws and the Constitution.
20
The Trump Administration Terminates TPS for Haiti
74. In December 2016, before President Trump took office, then-Secretary of State
John Kerry oversaw an assessment of country conditions in Haiti and recommended that DHS
extend the designation of TPS “because certain extraordinary and temporary conditions related to
the 2010 earthquake continue to exist.” Ex. 1 at 1. A DHS report issued by the Refugee, Asylum,
and International Operations Directorate Research Unit (“Research Unit”) around the same time
entitled “TPS Considerations: Haiti” similarly concluded that seven key “conditions prompting
the original January 2010 TPS designation persist,” justifying ongoing TPS designation: (1) an
ongoing housing shortage requiring as many as 500,000 additional housing units; (2) the ongoing
cholera epidemic, including the lack of access to safe drinking water, and lack of sanitation
infrastructure; (3) damage to the country’s economy, including nearly 40% unemployment and
6.3 million people living in poverty and unable to meet basic needs; (4) political instability
following the end of former President Michel Martelly’s term in February 2016; (5) security
risks related to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Haitians after the earthquake; (6) a
lack of food security for as many as 3.2 million people as of September 2016; and (7) ongoing
environmental risks caused by natural disasters, including October, 2016’s Hurricane Matthew,
the worst hurricane to hit Haiti in fifty-two years. Ex. 2 at 1-8.
75. Consistent with these assessments, on March 2, 2017, U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services (USCIS) staff circulated a memo discussing relevant country conditions in
Haiti and recommended that the Secretary of Homeland Security extend the TPS designation for
Haiti. USCIS staff included a corresponding draft Federal Register Notice extending the
21
designation for an additional 18 months. Ex. 3 at 4-5. The memo received a number of
clearances and was awaiting only the USCIS Director’s approval. Id. at 2-3.
76. On April 3, 2017, less than three months after President Trump took office and
approximately three days into USCIS Acting Director James McCament’s term, USCIS officials
pulled the memo and replaced it with one providing the Acting Director an option to terminate
the designation. Id. at 1-2.
77. On Friday, April 7, 2017, Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, who had been appointed USCIS
Chief of Policy and Strategy only five days earlier, instructed agency staff to obtain data on
existing Haitian TPS recipients, including criminal records and use of public benefits. Ex. 4 at 1.
Kovarik shared some resulting data with the Secretary of Homeland Security, but requested
additional information from staff for a briefing the following Monday with Acting Director
McCament. Id. at 31.
78. On Monday, April 10, 2017, in a stunning reversal, McCament issued a
memorandum recommending that Secretary Kelly terminate Haiti’s TPS designation. Ex. 5 at 1.
79. As the deadline for deciding whether to extend TPS for Haiti loomed, USCIS
Chief of Policy and Strategy Kovarik continued to press for statistics on the criminal records and
welfare use of Haitian TPS recipients.16 Ex. 4 at 44, 48. She also sought data on how many
Haitian TPS recipients were “illegal pre-TPS designation.” Id. at 48. For the latter, she suggested
that staff conduct a random sampling of files to generalize the immigration status pre-TPS
designation for the entire population. Id. at 56. Despite multiple responses that much of the data
requested was unavailable, Kovarik in an email responded that “I know some of it is not
captured, but we’ll have to figure out a way to squeeze more data out of our system.” Id. at 55.
16
Alicia A. Caldwell, U.S. Digs for Evidence of Haiti Immigrant Crimes, AP (May 9, 2017),
https://apnews.com/740ed5b40ce84bb398c82c48884be616.
22
She told staff to adduce information “[g]iven that the Sec is going to need it to make a decision .
. .” Id. at 77.
80. These DHS officials sought information on crime rates and public benefit usage
by TPS recipients for the express purpose of evaluating whether to extend or terminate Haiti’s
designation. That information, however, is legally irrelevant to the government’s evaluation of
the conditions on the ground in Haiti, which is governed by factors set out in the statute. Nor
would those considerations even make sense—criminal convictions render applicants ineligible
for TPS, and TPS holders are generally ineligible for federal welfare benefits. Although not
legally or logically relevant to the decision whether to extend TPS, those requests are consistent
with President Trump’s racial and national-origin bias against Haitians. Thus, upon information
and belief, DHS officials were seeking the information in an attempt to justify terminating
Haiti’s designation despite conditions on the ground.
81. Shortly thereafter, in May 2017, Senators Robert Menendez, Ron Wyden, Ed
Markey, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Sherrod Brown wrote to then-DHS Secretary John F. Kelly
“regarding the troubling news that your department has asked for information on the criminal
history and public benefits use of Haitians protected under [TPS].”17 The senators explained that
they were “concerned that you will use this information in your decision. Such analysis would be
outside the statutory framework for deciding whether to extend TPS, and it would be a disturbing
executive overreach.”18 Further, they noted that “the timing of this information request suggests
that this information is pretext to deny an extension of TPS,” and urged DHS to “keep [its]
review within the bounds dictated by Congress.”19
17
Letter from Sens. Robert Menendez, et al., to John F. Kelly, Sec’y of DHS (May 19, 2017),
https://www.menendez.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/HAITI-TPS_5_19_17.pdf.
18
Id.
19
Id.
23
82. There were other instances of DHS grasping for evidence to support a policy of
TPS termination. On May 1, in response to a request for conditions on the ground, the chief of
the Research Unit replied “[u]nfortunately, conditions in Haiti remain difficult,” citing in an
email to a number of conditions including the ongoing housing shortage for earthquake victims,
the unfulfilled promise of humanitarian aid following the earthquake, dire food scarcity, flooding
on the island, and economic challenges. Ex. 4 at 95.
83. Despite such email correspondence clearly stating that Haiti had not fully
recovered from the 2010 earthquake, DHS officials made a request on May 9, 2017 to the
Research Unit, for a new addendum to the December 2016 report entitled, “TPS Considerations:
Haiti.” See Ex. 2. The December 2016 report had already been updated by addendum, dated
February 7, 2017, in light of (1) the severe impact of Hurricane Matthew, which struck the island
in October 2016, and (2) elections which culminated in the swearing in of President Jovenel
Moïse. Ex. 6. Now, DHS requested that the following information be added:
(1) “GDP growth -longer-term trend. 2% growth in 2015 is noted in the Decision
Memo. In your report, you note it was 5.5% in 2011 and slowed to 2% in
2015 for various reasons. Can we get the year-over-year numbers/trends for
some period of years preceding the earthquake to the present (or the most
recent year following the earthquake for which GDP is tracked)?
(2) Information regarding the UN’s decision to conclude its peacekeeping mission
in October 2017. In particular, what served as the basis for the decision to end
the mission? What will replace it and in what capacity will it serve? And,
24
(3) Information regarding the status of reconstruction of the Presidential Palace,
and what that suggests regarding the Government of Haiti's post-earthquake
recovery and capacity.” See Ex. 4 at 94.
84. The figures above—requested as early as May 9, 2017—would subsequently
constitute three of the four considerations used in the Federal Register notice of January 18, 2018
to justify the termination of Haiti’s designation for TPS. See Termination of the Designation for
Temporary Protected Status, 83 Fed. Reg. 2,648, 2,650 (Jan. 18, 2018).
85. On May 24, 2017, Secretary Kelly once again extended TPS for Haiti based on a
review of the statutory criteria, but nevertheless warned Haitian nationals that they should begin
to prepare to return to Haiti. Extension of the Designation of Haiti for Temporary Protected
Status, 82 Fed. Reg. 23,830 (May 24, 2017). In his designation notice, Secretary Kelly
documented several country conditions that continued to prevent Haitian nationals from
returning to Haiti in safety, including the “ongoing cholera epidemic,” stating that since October
2010, close to 800,000 Haitians had contracted cholera, and nearly 10,000 people had died of the
disease. Id. at 23,832.
86. Secretary Kelly presented the fact that Hurricane Matthew, which made landfall
on October 4, 2016, caused 546 fatalities and left over 175,000 people without housing, as well
as causing “extensive damage to crops, housing, livestock, and infrastructure” across Haiti. Id.
Further, Secretary Kelly noted that approximately 3.2 million people faced food insecurity. Id.
87. Though Secretary Kelly found that 96% of people had moved out of internally
displaced person (IDP) camps, he noted that 55,000 people continued to live in IDP camps,
where they remained vulnerable to gender based violence (GBV) and other security risks. Id.
88. Secretary Kelly acknowledged that many camp residents may have moved back to
25
unsafe conditions: “Some people who were displaced by the earthquake, although no longer in
camps, have moved back to unsafe homes or relocated to informal settlements located in
hazardous areas.” Id.
89. Secretary Kelly’s 6-month extension was effective through January 22, 2018. Id.
at 23,830.
90. Despite his finding that conditions warranted an extension of TPS, Secretary
Kelly advised Haitian nationals to prepare to return to Haiti and made public statements that the
short extension was meant to be an “alert.” Thus, the TPS termination decision for Haiti appears
to have been a foregone conclusion.
91. Shortly after the extension, Secretary Kelly testified to the Senate in early June
2017, and attributed past TPS extensions to “automatic renewals.”20
92. Secretary Kelly indicated that he would only look at “the earthquake” in Haiti—
not the other “horrible conditions”—even though past Secretaries have looked at a range of
“extraordinary” conditions to determine whether the TPS extension was warranted.21
93. Secretary Kelly repeatedly said he wanted to focus on the word “temporary” in
the program’s name.22
94. Secretary Kelly’s remarks reveal a misunderstanding of the TPS program and the
relevant statute. The word “temporary” in the program name does not refer to arbitrarily-
measured time periods of short duration, but rather to measurable criteria used for regular
evaluation of whether the extraordinary conditions giving rise to the need for protection
20
The Department of Homeland Security Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Request: Hearing Before the S. Comm. on
Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs (June 6, 2017), https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/hearings/the-department-
of-homeland-security-fiscal-year-2018-budget-request.
21
Id.
22
Id.
26
continue. Because those conditions, such as war or natural disaster, are extraordinary, they are by
definition not permanent or indefinite. Secretary Kelly’s notion of temporary disregards the
statutory text and the clear statutory criteria that govern whether the program’s protection for
vulnerable noncitizens, once granted, may be terminated.
95. Secretary Kelly’s remarks indicate that he was focused on terminating Haiti’s
TPS status designation rather than evaluating the conditions on the ground as the statute requires.
96. DHS officials were communicating the same message in internal correspondence.
For example, in preparation for a meeting between newly-elected Haitian President Jovenel
Moïse and the Vice President Mike Pence at a Chamber of Commerce conference in Miami,
Director of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs at DHS, David Cloe, circulated talking points
including: “TPS is meant to be a temporary measure, not a permanent parole policy,” and “S1
decided to extend TPS for qualifying Haitians for six months because he recognizes the
administration of President Moïse has only been in office for a few months, and wants to support
the new president’s plans to entice Haitians living abroad to return to the island, using their skills
and capital to invest in Haiti and help create jobs.” Ex. 7 at 1.
97. In October 2017, the Research Unit updated DHS’s “TPS Considerations: Haiti”
report. The 18-page update continued to identify the same seven previously identified areas of
concern as justifying ongoing TPS designation, and again concluded that “conditions prompting
the original January 2010 TPS designation persist.” Ex. 8 at 1. Additionally, the update identified
“setbacks that have impeded [Haiti’s] recovery, including a cholera epidemic and the impact of
Hurricane Matthew,” and noted that the “impact of recurring natural disasters is particularly
severe” in Haiti. Id. at 1, 18. The update concluded by characterizing the nation’s recovery as a
“tragic pattern of one step forward, two steps back.” Id. at 18 (internal quotation marks and
27
citation omitted).
98. On October 4, 2017, the Haitian government requested DHS provide an 18-month
extension to allow the country to “adequately move forward with its recovery and redevelopment
plan.”23 In its letter, the government explained that its ongoing efforts to continue to recover
from the earthquake and from the ravages of the cholera epidemic and Hurricane Matthew had
been hampered by significant setbacks, including both Hurricanes Irma and Maria, as Haiti
continued to face daunting challenges. The Haitian government warned that terminating TPS
would force the government to halt its “ongoing, short-term redevelopment efforts” and to “focus
its limited resources on receiving the influx of citizens.”24 In the same letter, the government
invited then-Acting DHS Secretary Duke to Haiti so that she could see the conditions on the
ground first hand.
99. Consistent with indications that DHS officials had predetermined an end to
Haiti’s TPS designation despite conditions on the ground, upon receiving the invitation for the
Acting Secretary to visit Haiti, a DHS official advised, “She definitely is not going to Haiti. We
can ask about a meeting here.”25 Ex. 9 at 1, 3, 5.
100. On or about October 31, 2017, Secretary of State Tillerson sent a letter to Acting
Secretary Duke, stating that conditions in Haiti no longer justify its TPS designation. 26 In the
23
Letter from Paul G. Altidor, Haitian Ambassador to the United States, to Elaine C. Duke, Acting Secretary of
Dep’t of Homeland Sec. (Oct. 4, 2017), http://www.miamiherald.com/latest-
news/article178072401.ece/binary/Lettertothe%20HonorableElaineC.Duke.pdf.
24
Id.
25
Acting Secretary Duke would go on to meet with the Haitian Ambassador to the United States and the Haitian
Foreign Minister on November 13, 2017, one week before terminating Haiti’s TPS designation. Ted Hesson, Haitian
officials press Duke, Politico (Nov. 17, 2017), https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-
shift/2017/11/17/haitian-officials-press-duke-026792.
26
Nick Miroff and Karen DeYoung, Protected Status No Longer Justified for Central Americans and Haitians in
U.S., State Dept. says, Wash. Post (Nov. 3, 2017), https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/central-americans-and-
haitians-no-longer-need-protected-status-state-dept-says/2017/11/03/647cbd5c-c0ba-11e7-959c-
fe2b598d8c00_story.html?utm_term=.5dbdde5a666a.
28
same letter, Tillerson recommended that TPS be terminated across the board for countries in
Central America.
101. Secretary Tillerson’s October 2017 recommendation to terminate TPS was
directly contrary to the counsel and expertise of State Department officials in Washington, D.C.
and at the U.S. Embassy in Haiti.27 In a diplomatic cable, officials from the U.S. Embassy in
Haiti stated that it would be in the “U.S. national interest” to renew the TPS designations for
Haiti. Ex. 10 at 3. Embassy officials further observed that repatriating tens of thousands of TPS
beneficiaries would pose challenges to the Haitian National Police’s ability to guarantee security
throughout the country. Id. The Department of State Recommendations for Haiti also stated that
it would not be contrary to U.S. national interests to allow TPS beneficiaries from all three
countries to remain in the United States. Id.
102. Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller, however, placed phone calls to top
Tillerson advisers telling them to end TPS anyway without due regard to the relevant conditions
on the ground.28 By Fall of 2017, Tillerson’s message to Acting Secretary Duke was that
27
Nick Miroff, Seung Min Kim, and Joshua Partlow, U.S. Embassy Cables Warned Against Expelling 300,000
Immigrants. Trump Officials Did it Anyway, Wash. Post (May 8, 2017),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-embassy-cables-warned-against-expelling-300000-
immigrants-trump-officials-did-it-anyway/2018/05/08/065e5702-4fe5-11e8-b966-
bfb0da2dad62_story.html?utm_term=.986362e8fcd1.
28
Id. Miller is the President’s 32-year-old advisor, and is himself an outspoken critic of immigrants, both
documented and undocumented. Miller has “had a direct hand in several of the Administration’s most significant
immigration decisions, including the travel bans and the cancellation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
(DACA).” Jonathan Blitzer, How Stephen Miller Single-Handedly Got The U.S. To Accept Fewer Refugees, New
Yorker (Oct. 13, 2017), https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-stephen-miller-single-handedly-got-the-
us-to-accept-fewer-refugees. And, in at least one policy-making process involving the so-called “refugee cap,”
Miller “suppressed evidence that was important to consider” according to an official at the State Department. Id.
Moreover, according to the same official, he inserted “spurious statistics” into reports; “Things like: refugees are
thirty times more likely to commit a terrorist act.” Id. One White House official described Miller’s conduct as
“manipulation to get the result he wanted. He basically just had a political agenda: to limit the number of foreign
nationals who come into our country.” Id. As part of this same policy-making process, Miller “rejected a study by
the Department of Health and Human Services that found that refugees brought in . . . more in government revenues
. . . than they cost.” Julie Hirschfeld Davis & Somali Sengupta, Trump Administration Rejects Study Showing
Positive Impact of Refugees, New York Times (Sept. 18, 2017),
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/us/politics/refugees-revenue-cost-report-trump.html.
29
terminating TPS “was just something she had to do.”29
103. Before being sent to DHS, State Department officials “edited” the Department’s
Country Conditions Report for Haiti, which describe conditions on the ground, to reflect
Secretary Tillerson’s recommendation to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation. Officials
specifically “deleted the portions the Secretary disapproved.” Ex. 11 at 1, 25-26.
104. On November 3, 2017, L. Francis Cissna, Director of U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services, relied on the updated October 2017 DHS report on Haiti to recommend
termination of Haiti’s TPS designation to then-Acting DHS Secretary Duke. Cissna blatantly
misconstrued the evidence and analysis contained in the updated DHS report—and completely
ignored the evidence relating to post-earthquake setbacks to Haiti’s recovery (contrary to prior
DHS practice)—when Cissna cited to and relied on the report to assert that “Haiti has made
significant progress in recovering from the 2010 earthquake, and no longer continues to meet the
conditions for designation.” Ex. 12 at 3.
105. Significantly, Cissna also dismissed as unconnected to the earthquake conditions
that were explicitly tethered to the earthquake under prior analyses. For example, he claimed that
“Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, but it had enormous problems long
before, and unrelated to, the 2010 earthquake.” Id. Compare October 2017 DHS Report, Ex. 8 at
1 (“Although some progress regarding reconstruction and recovery has been made in a variety of
sectors, billions of dollars in pledged foreign assistance never materialized, and the pace and
scope of Haiti’s recovery has been uneven. Many of the conditions prompting the original
January 2010 TPS designation persist, and the country remains vulnerable to external shocks and
internal fragility.”).
29
Jonathan Blitzer, The Battle Inside the Trump Administration Over T.P.S., The New Yorker (May 11, 2018),
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-battle-inside-the-trump-administration-over-tps.
30
106. On November 20, 2017, DHS announced that it was terminating TPS for Haiti
with a delayed effective date of July 22, 2019.30 The announcement ignored the basis for the
original and ongoing designation based upon extraordinary conditions under 8
U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(1)(C), which included all of the events enumerated in Kelly’s extension.
Instead, it stated that the decision “was made after a review of the conditions upon which the
country’s original designation were based,” and summarily asserted that the “extraordinary but
temporary conditions caused by the 2010 earthquake no longer exist. Thus, under the applicable
statute, the current TPS designation must be terminated.”31
107. DHS went on to assert that Haiti had taken unspecified “[s]ignificant steps,” and
the country was now “able to safely receive traditional levels of returned citizens.”32
108. The statement ignored key evidence and its own internal analysis, failing to
explain how Haiti had managed to overcome the seven key justifications for maintaining TPS
that had been repeatedly identified by DHS, namely: enduring housing shortages; a cholera
epidemic; widespread economic insecurity; continued political instability; security threats,
repeated food shortages; the massive destruction and food insecurity caused by Hurricane
Matthew; and ongoing risks caused by even more recent environmental disasters, including
flooding associated with Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Ex. 3 at 1-14. Similarly, it failed to explain
how Haiti had managed to overcome the list of extraordinary conditions, including post-
earthquake conditions, that were considered by DHS only months earlier when Secretary Kelly
had reauthorized Haiti’s TPS designation. As a result, DHS’s review of the conditions in Haiti
30
DHS Press Release, Acting Secretary Elaine Duke Announcement on Temporary Protected Status (Nov. 20,
2017), https://www.dhs.gov/news/2017/11/20/acting-secretary-elaine-duke-announcement-temporary-protected-
status-haiti.
31
Id.
32
Id.
31
failed to adequately assess whether conditions in Haiti had changed or the statutory criteria for
TPS designation continued to be met.
109. Almost two months later, on January 18, 2018, DHS published the notice of its
termination of Haiti’s TPS designation in the Federal Register. Termination of the Designation of
Haiti for Temporary Protected Status, 83 Fed. Reg. 2648. The notice, signed by then-Deputy
Secretary Duke, was issued after an unprecedented delay and just four days before the expiration
of the then-current TPS period for Haitians, January 22, 2018. Because TPS holders rely on the
notice to obtain work authorization and driver’s licenses, the delay likely caused unknown
numbers of TPS recipients to lose their jobs.
110. The termination notice, like the earlier press release, provided little information
about what factors DHS reviewed in reaching its decision to revoke the protected status of
50,000 Haitians,33 who have remained in the U.S. for at least seven years.
111. Deputy Secretary Duke simply stated that the number of people in IDP camps had
decreased and that the United Nations had withdrawn its peacekeeping mission. She noted that a
new Haitian president was in office, and that he intended to rebuild the National Palace. She
further stated that Haiti’s economy had been recovering since the earthquake. Last, she cursorily
mentioned the cholera epidemic, but offered no analysis of its reach other than to say that it was
“at its lowest level.” 83 Fed. Reg. at 2650.
112. Crucially, DHS’s termination notice referred exclusively to the country’s 2010
earthquake, making no notice of the extraordinary conditions that Secretary Kelly had noted only
months earlier—and that had been emphasized in the October 2017 DHS report—such as the
enormous damage caused by Hurricane Matthew.
33
Robert Warren and Donald Kerwin, A Statistical and Demographic Profile of the US Temporary Protected Status
Populations from El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti, 5(3) J. MIGRATION & HUM. SEC. 577, 581 (2017).
32
113. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(3)(C), unless DHS determines that a foreign state “no
longer meets the conditions” for which a designation is in effect, the period of designation “is
extended.” Under previous Administrations, consistent with this statutory mandate, DHS
conducted a careful review to determine whether conditions in Haiti continued to reflect the
severe problems with respect to housing, food security, infrastructure, access to health care, and
gender-based violence that have plagued Haiti since the 2010 earthquake and that justified
Haiti’s TPS designation. Unlike these prior extensions of Haiti’s TPS protection, Defendants
failed to consider the numerous natural disasters Haiti recently experienced, the slow process of
economic and infrastructural recovery described in recent extensions, the housing crisis, the
remaining food scarcity, or the persistent reports of gender-based violence. The limited scope of
analysis dramatically departs from previous notices issued by the Department. See, e.g., 82 Fed.
Reg. at 23,831.
114. To the extent that DHS did purport to examine the facts regarding country
conditions in Haiti, it was only to identify facts to provide an ex post facto rationalization of the
unlawful decision that had already been made to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation.
115. Reviews of country conditions in Haiti made in the weeks prior to the November
20, 2017 decision to terminate TPS demonstrate that the country continues to experience the
extraordinary and temporary conditions for which Haiti was designated for TPS in 2010 and re-
designated for TPS in 2011. The conditions include:
(i) internal displacement: More than 37,000 people remain in IDP camps,34 with tens
of thousands more displaced but not recorded in official statistics due to lack of
34
U.N. OCHA, Haiti: Humanitarian Snapshot (Aug. 2017),
https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/system/files/documents/files/hti_humanitarian_snapshot_august2017-
en_0.pdf.
33
tracking or reclassification;35
(ii) a housing and physical infrastructure crisis: many people who left camps settled
in equally inadequate and unsafe homes, many of which were damaged by the
earthquake and have not been repaired.36 For example, upwards of 200,000 live in
Canaan, a makeshift, informal settlement created shortly after the earthquake
whose inhabitants lack access to basic services—including water, health care, and
waste management;37
(iii) one of the world’s worst cholera epidemics;38
(iv) grave hunger and malnutrition, with more than 2.35 million people “in need of
immediate assistance,” facing severe food insecurity,39 greatly exacerbated by the
massive destruction of crops, livestock, and infrastructure in Haiti’s southern
peninsula by Hurricane Matthew in October 2016;40
(v) political instability and security risks, including the risk of gender-based
violence.41 The United Nations Peacekeeping force played an important role in
stabilizing Haiti. Its replacement with a smaller force has generated concern that
Haiti lacks necessary police presence. Nearly one quarter of police supervisory
positions remain unfilled, and the police have a presence in fewer than half of
35
GJC Report at 9-11.
36
Ex. 8 (DHS Oct. 2017 Report) at 2.
37
Id. at 2, 12.
38
U.N. OCHA, Haiti: Humanitarian Snapshot (November 2017),
https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/system/files/documents/files/hti_humanitarian_snapshot_november2017-
en.pdf.
39
Ex. 8 (DHS Oct. 2017 Report) at 12.
40
GJC Report at 19-21.
41
REFUGEES INTERNATIONAL, Two Steps Back: Haiti Still Reeling from Hurricane Matthew 5 (2017),
https://www.refugeesinternational.org/reports/2017/4/6/haiti.
34
Haiti’s 570 communal sections;42 and
(vi) a widening fiscal deficit, with economic growth slowing to one percent and public
expenditures on the rise to meet post-Matthew reconstruction needs.43
DHS’s Termination of Haitian TPS Violated the Statute and Was Motivated by Unlawful
Discrimination Against Immigrants of Color and Haitians in Particular
116. Prior to the election of Donald Trump, DHS applied the mandatory statutory
criteria for review and considered all the “extraordinary” conditions in Haiti that prevented
Haitian nationals from returning safely—including Haiti’s housing crisis, cholera epidemic, lack
of access to medical care, its struggling economy, political instability, security concerns, gender-
based violence, inadequate access to food and water, and environmental factors.
117. In testimony to the Senate, however, Secretary Kelly implied that he thought
Haitian TPS should be terminated despite these conditions. He ignored the specific and
measurable factors Congress has enacted to govern TPS extensions.
118. This Administration has employed its implausible interpretation of the statute—
misreading the word “temporary” to ignore the specific mandatory statutory framework
Congress established—as a blunt instrument for accomplishing an agenda motivated by race and
national origin discrimination against Haitians and animosity in general toward immigrants of
color. And President Trump has made clear his hostility toward Black immigrants and his wish
to prevent them from obtaining any benefits. He has expressed in shockingly forthright terms his
desire to prevent Haitians from remaining in the United States. Because he believes that Haitians
“all have AIDS” and that they come from “shithole countries,” he has directed that they should
42
U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL, Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Stabilization Mission in
Haiti, ¶ 39, U.N. Doc. S/2016/753 (Aug. 31, 2016).
43
THE WORLD BANK, Haiti: Overview (October 2017), http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/overview.
35
be “take[n] … out” of any consideration of TPS. His administration’s rescission of Haiti’s TPS
is part of his irrational and discriminatory agenda.
119. In departing from the careful statutory reviews employed by prior DHS
Secretaries, in changing (without any explanation or justification) the standard for reviewing
TPS designation that DHS had previously applied, and in ignoring the factual evidence available
to them, Defendants employed an arbitrary, unauthorized, unlawful, and invalid process,
requiring judicial intervention.
120. Haitians with TPS in the United States, including Plaintiffs, relied on Defendants
following the mandatory statutory procedure and its prior long-held standard in deciding whether
to extend TPS and understood that they would not be forced to return to Haiti until conditions
were safe.
121. If the termination of Haiti’s TPS goes into effect, Plaintiffs and other TPS
beneficiaries will suffer immediate and irreparable injuries to their rights under the U.S.
Constitution and federal law; to their proprietary interests; and to their safety.
CLAIMS FOR RELIEF
FIRST CLAIM FOR RELIEF
Administrative Procedure Act: Agency Action that is Arbitrary and Capricious, An Abuse
of Discretion, and Otherwise Not In Accordance with Law, In Excess of Statutory
Authority, And Without Observance of Procedure Required By Law
122. Plaintiffs incorporate the allegations in paragraphs 1-121 by reference as if fully
set forth herein.
123. The APA directs federal courts to hold unlawful and set aside federal agency
action that is “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with
law,” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A); “in excess of statutory jurisdiction, authority, or limitations, or short
36
of statutory right,” id. § 706(2)(C); or “without observance of procedure required by law,” id.
§ 706(2)(D).
124. Although the TPS statute provides for “no judicial review of any determination of
the DHS Secretary with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation,
of a foreign state under this subsection,” 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(5), Plaintiffs are not challenging a
TPS “determination” but the practice or procedure that Defendants have employed in making
decisions to terminate TPS, including but not limited to Defendants’ failure to undertake the
statutory review process and their failure to base their termination of Haiti’s TPS on any
determination that Haiti no longer meets the statutory review criteria.
125. Defendants’ termination of TPS for Haiti constitutes final agency action.
126. In terminating Haiti’s TPS, Defendants abandoned their well-established standard
for reviewing TPS designations. Defendants terminated Haiti’s TPS based solely on an overly
narrow consideration of the “conditions on which the country’s original designation were
based,”44 without any consideration of the extraordinary conditions that currently prevent Haitian
immigrants from safely returning to Haiti. Under the prior policy, such extraordinary conditions
were taken into account in reviewing TPS, as required by statute.
127. As further evidence of its departure from prior policy, the Administration applied
this new standard in 2017 and 2018 not only in terminating Haiti’s TPS designation, but also in
terminating TPS designations for El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Sudan.45
44
DHS Press Release, Acting Secretary Elaine Duke Announcement on Temporary Protected Status (Nov. 20,
status-haiti.
45
Compare id. with Acting Secretary Elaine Duke Announcement on Temporary Protected Status for Nicaragua and
Honduras (Nov. 6, 2017), https://www.dhs.gov/news/2017/11/06/acting-secretary-elaine-duke-announcement-
temporary-protected-status-nicaragua-and; Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen Announcement on
Temporary Protected Status for El Salvador (Jan. 8, 2018), https://www.dhs.gov/news/2018/01/08/secretary-
homeland-security-kirstjen-m-nielsen-announcement-temporary-protected; Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen
M. Nielsen Announcement on Temporary Protected Status for Honduras (May 4, 2018),
37
128. The Administration has adopted this new standard for reviewing TPS designations
without sufficient explanation or justification. Defendants have not even publically displayed any
awareness that they have changed their policy, but rather, have adopted a new standard sub
silentio, without meeting the APA’s requirement that they demonstrate good reasons for the
change in policy. Defendants have arbitrarily and capriciously ignored both the contrary factual
findings connected with the prior policy and the serious reliance interests that the prior policy
engendered on the part of Haitian immigrants, and thus, Defendants have failed to provide the
detailed justification for the new policy that such considerations warrant. See FCC v. Fox
Television Stations, Inc., 556 U.S. 502, 515–16 (2009).
129. On information and belief, Defendants also failed to undertake the process of
reviewing country conditions that the statute requires, and they failed to base their decision to
terminate Haiti’s TPS on the required process of review. Whereas Congress enacted statutory
criteria for review to ensure the protection of noncitizens vulnerable to extraordinary
environmental, geopolitical, health and/or other human tragedies, Defendants instead made an
arbitrary decision to terminate TPS for Haiti. To the extent that Defendants engaged in any
process of review, it was only to identify facts that might appear to rationalize the predetermined,
arbitrary decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS based on the Trump Administration’s irrational and
racist immigration policy agenda. In particular, Defendants disregarded and misconstrued the
factual evidence available to them, including by ignoring and/or directing their subordinates to
rewrite reports and recommendations supporting an extension of Haiti’s TPS. Defendants also
adopted and implemented a new legal standard for making TPS termination decisions, which
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2018/05/04/secretary-homeland-security-kirstjen-m-nielsen-announcement-temporary-
protected; cf. Termination of the Designation of Sudan for Temporary Protected Status, 82 Fed. Reg. 47,228, 47,230
(Oct. 11, 2017).
38
Defendants have used to rationalize the decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS, notwithstanding their
failure to comply with the statutory criteria for review. Defendants, thus, employed an invalid
and unauthorized process to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation.
130. Defendants’ termination of Haitian TPS is arbitrary and capricious; an abuse of
discretion; otherwise not in accordance with the law; in excess of statutory authority; and was
undertaken without observance of procedure required by law, and therefore should be held
invalid and set aside under the APA.
SECOND CLAIM FOR RELIEF

Fifth Amendment (Due Process)
set forth herein.
132. The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibits the federal
government, including Defendants, from depriving individuals of their liberty or property
interests without due process of law.
133. Defendants’ termination of TPS violates TPS recipients’ due process rights
because it was based on the President’s racial animus towards immigrants of color and Haitians
in particular—thus, the TPS termination decision was irrational under the Due Process Clause.
134. Further, because the TPS termination was based on racial animus, it is neither
narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest nor rationally related to a legitimate
government interest.
135. Further, Defendants’ termination of Haitian TPS arbitrarily deprives current TPS
recipients of the process to which they are entitled, as shown by the Administration’s departure
from and apparent disregard of the process for termination of TPS set forth in 8 U.S.C. § 1254a,
39
which otherwise provides for the continuation of the statute’s benefits if the conditions that
justify its application persist.
136. Further, termination of Haitian TPS violates Haitian TPS recipients’ due process
rights because the termination was based on the President’s categorical and defamatory
assertions about all Haitians, which the Haitian TPS recipients were given no opportunity to
challenge.
THIRD CLAIM FOR RELIEF

Fifth Amendment (Equal Protection)
set forth herein.
138. The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibits the federal
government, including Defendants, from denying to any person equal protection of the laws.
139. The government has acknowledged that it does not have the right to discriminate
based upon race or national origin. See Jean v. Nelson, 472 U.S. 846, 855-57 (1985).
140. Defendants’ TPS termination targets immigrants of color and Haitians in
particular and was improperly motivated by discriminatory animus based on race and national
origin.
141. There is clear evidence—including President Trump’s own outrageous assertions
that Haitians “all have AIDS” and that United States policy should be to accept more immigrants
from countries like Norway rather than “shithole countries” like Haiti, as well as the
Administration’s failure to conduct any adequate review of country conditions in Haiti as
required by statute—that the decision to terminate TPS for Haiti was motivated by racism and
discriminatory animus and that the same decision would not otherwise have been made.
40
142. Thus, because the TPS termination was based on racial animus, it is neither
narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest nor rationally related to a legitimate
government interest.
143. Accordingly, the action violated Plaintiffs’ rights to Equal Protection of the laws.
FOURTH CLAIM FOR RELIEF

Administrative Procedure Act: Notice-and-Comment Rulemaking
set forth herein.
145. When an agency promulgates a substantive rule, it must give notice of that rule in
the Federal Register and “shall give interested persons an opportunity to participate in the rule
making through submission of written data, views, or arguments with or without opportunity for
oral presentation.” 5 U.S.C. § 553(b), (c).
146. When the agency fails to adhere to this requirement, its action may be set aside
under 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(D).
147. The Trump Administration has substantively changed the criteria employed for
terminating TPS designations. Contrary to prior Administrations, DHS has determined that TPS
designations must be terminated when the conditions caused by the event on which the country’s
designation was originally based have improved, irrespective of whether other extraordinary
conditions prevent nationals from safely returning to the country.
148. These new criteria have not been codified in any published rule or regulation and
are contrary to statute. Nevertheless, they have been applied to terminate multiple TPS
designations, including Haiti’s TPS designation. The new criteria constitute a substantive legal
and policy change with significant effects on individuals living in the United States pursuant to
TPS designations that have been terminated but would not have been terminated under prior
41
policy. Further, DHS has applied the new criteria in a way that indicates that the new criteria are
binding. In particular, DHS concluded that Haiti’s designation “must be terminated” because the
new criteria supposedly have not been met.46
149. Alternatively, the termination of Haitian TPS itself constitutes a rule that
implements a substantive policy change by the Administration and binds DHS to deny
applications for TPS to individuals who previously met eligibility criteria.
150. Accordingly, DHS was required to engage in notice-and-comment rulemaking
before adopting their new unpublished rule for making TPS termination decisions and before
terminating Haiti’s designation.
151. Defendants did not follow notice-and-comment rulemaking procedures before
adopting their new unpublished rule for making TPS termination decisions. Nor did they follow
notice-and-comment rulemaking procedures before terminating Haitian TPS or terminating any
other TPS designations that implemented their new rule.
152. Accordingly, Defendants’ termination of Haitian TPS violated the notice-and-
comment provisions of the APA and should be set aside.
FIFTH CLAIM FOR RELIEF

Regulatory Flexibility Act
set forth herein.
154. DHS failed to conduct any regulatory flexibility analysis to determine how the
termination of Haitian TPS will affect small entities, such as Haïti Liberté, in violation of the
Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA). 5 US.C. §§ 601 et seq.
46 DHS Press Release, Acting Secretary Elaine Duke Announcement on Temporary Protected Status (Nov. 20,
status-haiti.
42
155. Haïti Liberté, as a “small organization” within the meaning of 5 U.S.C. § 601(4),
is directly affected by the termination of Haitian TPS, and therefore DHS was required to
conduct a regulatory flexibility analysis prior to promulgating the rule.
156. Defendants failed to conduct a regulatory flexibility analysis.
157. Defendants’ termination of Haitian TPS violated the RFA.
SIXTH CLAIM FOR RELIEF

Ultra Vires Under Federal Common Law
set forth here.
159. DHS’s termination of the designation of Haiti as a TPS country is ultra vires of
the provisions in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which govern the designation,
termination, and extension of TPS countries.
160. As demonstrated by publicly available reports regarding the President’s racially
motivated desire to remove Haitian TPS holders from the country and DHS’s stated focus on the
“temporary” nature of the TPS designation, it is clear that DHS’s decision was not properly
based on the required factors set forth at 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(1)(A-C).
161. The termination of Haiti’s TPS designation is ultra vires of the INA and should be
held invalid and set aside.
ATTORNEYS’ FEES UNDER EQUAL ACCESS TO JUSTICE ACT
set forth here.
163. Because of the Defendants’ unlawful actions, Plaintiffs were required to retain
legal counsel.
43
164. Pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act (“EAJA”), 5 U.S.C. § 504 and 28
U.S.C. § 2412, Plaintiffs are entitled to recover their costs, expenses, and fees because Defendants’
actions are not and have not been substantially justified.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs respectfully request that the Court:
a. Declare that Defendants’ decision to terminate the designation of Haiti as a TPS
country violates Plaintiffs’ Fifth Amendment rights to Equal Protection and Due Process; is
arbitrary and capricious; is in excess of statutory authority; was undertaken without observance
of procedure required by law; and is ultra vires of the INA.
b. Declare that Defendants’ failure to subject its termination of the designation for
Haiti to notice-and-comment rulemaking violates 5 U.S.C. § 553 et seq.;
c. Declare that Defendants’ failure to publish an initial regulatory flexibility analysis
violates the requirements of the Regulatory Flexibility Act, 5 U.S.C. § 601 et seq.;
d. Enjoin and restrain Defendants, their agents, servants, employees, attorneys, and
all persons in active concert or participation with any of them from implementing or enforcing
the decision to rescind Haitian TPS and from taking any other action to rescind Haitian TPS that
is not in compliance with applicable law;
e. Reverse DHS’s determination to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation, and enjoin
Defendants from removing Haitian nationals with TPS from the United States based on the
termination;
f. Order the Defendants to accept applications for TPS after July 22, 2019 and to
accept late-filed applications during the TPS period;
g. Award Plaintiffs costs and attorneys’ fees; and
44
h. Grant such further relief as the Court deems just and proper.
Dated: May 31, 2018
Respectfully Submitted,
/s/ Ira J. Kurzban
Ira J. Kurzban, (NY Bar No. 5347083)

Edward F. Ramos* Christopher J. Houpt (NY Bar No. 4452462)
Kevin Gregg MAYER BROWN LLP
Celso Perez* 1221 Avenue of the Americas
KURZBAN, KURZBAN, WEINGER, New York, NY 10020
TETZELI & PRATT, P.A. Phone: (212) 506-2500
2650 S.W. 27th Avenue, 2nd Floor choupt@mayerbrown.com
Miami, FL 33133
Phone: (312) 660-1364 Miriam Nemetz*
ira@kkwtlaw.com MAYER BROWN LLP
1999 K Street, NW
Sejal Zota Washington, DC 20006
Elizabeth Simpson* Phone: (202) 263-3000
NATIONAL IMMIGRATION PROJECT OF mnemetz@mayerbrown.com
THE NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD
14 Beacon Street, Suite 602 Geoffrey M. Pipoly
Boston, MA 02018 Christopher J. Ferro
Phone: (919) 698-5015 MAYER BROWN LLP
sejal@nipnlg.org 71 S. Wacker Drive
Chicago, IL 60606
Phone: (312) 782-0600
Clarel Cyriaque* gpipoly@mayerbrown.com
CLAREL CYRIAQUE LAW OFFICE
108 S. Miami Avenue
Miami, FL 33130
Phone: (305) 377-3838
*Application for pro hac vice admission Attorneys for Plaintiffs

forthcoming
45
Exhibit 1
Case 1:18-cv-01599-WFK-ST Document 21-1 Filed 05/31/18 Page 1 of 6 PageID #: 178
Exhibit 2
Exhibit 3
1
2
3
4
5
Exhibit 4
Exhibit 5
0120ÿ4567ÿ85ÿ9
7ÿÿ5ÿ 9

0120ÿ4567ÿ85ÿ9
7ÿÿ5ÿ 9

0120ÿ4567ÿ85ÿ9
7ÿÿ5ÿ 9

0120ÿ4567ÿ85ÿ9
7ÿÿ5ÿ 9

0120ÿ4567ÿ85ÿ9
7ÿÿ5ÿ 9

0120ÿ4567ÿ85ÿ9
7ÿÿ5ÿ 9

Exhibit 6
Exhibit 7
DHS-001-659-000997
DHS-001-659-000998
DHS-001-659-000999
DHS-001-659-001000
Exhibit 8
Refugee, Asylum, International Operations

RAIO Research Unit
20 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20529-2100
TPS CONSIDERATIONS: HAITI (OCTOBER 2017)

NATURAL DISASTER
BACKGROUND & OVERVIEW
The January 12, 2010 earthquake that struck Haiti caused extensive damage to the country’s
physical infrastructure and public health, agricultural, housing, transportation, and educational
facilities. Haitian government estimates of the death toll caused by the earthquake have ranged
from 230,000 to as high as 316,000 people, though the accuracy of differing estimates is in
dispute.1 Estimates of people internally displaced range from approximately 1.5 million2 to 2.3
million3 at the peak of displacement.
Although some progress regarding reconstruction and recovery has been made in a variety of
scope of Haiti’s recovery has been uneven. 4 Many of the conditions prompting the original
internal fragility. Haiti has also experienced various setbacks that have impeded its recovery,
including a cholera epidemic and the impact of Hurricane Matthew—the latter of which struck
Haiti in October 2016 and “severely worsened the pre-existing humanitarian situation” in the
country.5 As of August 2017, Haiti “continues to be affected by a convergence of humanitarian
needs,” 6 including food insecurity, internal displacement, an influx of returnees from the
Dominican Republic, the persistence of cholera, and the lingering impact of various natural
disasters.7 Moreover, Haiti’s recovery has also been impacted by a series of other challenges
1
O’Conner, Maura R., Two Years Later, Haitian Earthquake Death Toll in Dispute, Columbia Journalism Review,
Jan. 12, 2012.
2
Status of Post-Earthquake Recovery and Development Efforts in Haiti (December 2014), U.S. Department of State,
Dec. 2014.
3
Key Statistics, Office of the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Community-Based Medicine & Lessons from
Haiti, United Nations, 2012.
4
US Gives Haitian Immigrants 6-month TPS Extension, Voice of America News, May 22, 2017; Charles,
Jacqueline, Senate Democrats to Trump administration: Let Haitians stay, Miami Herald, Apr. 27, 2017.
5
Haiti: Humanitarian Snapshot (June 2017), United Nations Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(UNOCHA), Jul. 4. 2017.
6
Haiti - Humanitarian Situation Report - August 2017, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), p.1, Aug. 2017.
7
(UNOCHA), Jul. 4. 2017; Haiti Humanitarian Bulletin - Issue 64 | May 2017, United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), p.5, Jun. 11, 2017.
DHS000038
TPS Considerations: Haiti

Page 2
related to housing, healthcare, economic growth, political instability, security, and environmental
concerns.
HOUSING SHORTAGE & INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT
Even before the 2010 earthquake, Haiti faced a substantial national housing deficit, estimated at
700,000 housing units.8 With an estimated $2.3 billion in damages—approximately 40% of the
total—housing was the sector most impacted by the earthquake.9 The Haitian government
estimated that 105,000 houses were destroyed and 188,383 houses collapsed or suffered
considerable damage.10 The International Organization for Migration (IOM) claimed that 1.5
million Haitians were internally displaced and moved into internally displaced person (IDP)
camps and other temporary sites following the disaster.11
While the number of IDP camps/sites and displaced individuals from the 2010 earthquake have
significantly declined, Haiti still faces considerable obstacles related to housing. According to
data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), from July 2010 to June 2017,
there has been a net decrease in displacement by 97 percent, and 98 percent of sites have
closed.12 However, as IOM reported in June 2017, “Camp closures, relocation and rental subsidy
programs began decreasing substantially in March 2015, a trend which continues today.”13
According to Amnesty International, many individuals who have left the IDP camps/sites have
reportedly “moved back to unsafe houses or started building or reconstructing their houses, in
most cases with no assistance or guidance, and often in informal settlements located in hazardous
areas.”14 Amnesty International has also claimed that over 60,000 IDPs have been forcibly
evicted from camps since 2010 by private landowners, often with the assistance or implicit
support of Haitian authorities.15
As of June 2017, around 37,867 IDPs (9,347 households) were still living in 27 camps.16
According to IOM, the number of organizations providing assistance to IDPs has declined in
8
Ten facts about Haiti’s housing crisis, Amnesty International, Jan. 12, 2015,
https://www.amnesty.org/en/articles/news/2015/01/ten-facts-about-haiti-s-housing-crisis/, (last visited Aug. 16,
2017).
9
2017).
10
11
Five Years After 2010 Earthquake, Thousands of Haitians Remain Displaced, International Organization for
Migration, Jan. 9, 2015, https://www.iom.int/news/five-years-after-2010-earthquake-thousands-haitians-remain-
displaced, (last visited Aug. 16, 2017).
12
IOM Haiti – DTM Report – June 2017, International Organization for Migration, p.5, June 2017.
13
14
Haiti: internal displacement, forced evictions, statelessness - the catalogue to violations continue, Amnesty
International, p.6, Mar. 31, 2016.
15
“15 Minutes to Leave”: Denial of the Right to Adequate Housing in Post-Quake Haiti, Amnesty International, p.9,
21, Jan. 2015; Haiti: internal displacement, forced evictions, statelessness - the catalogue to violations continue,
Amnesty International, p.6, Mar. 31, 2016.
16
DHS000039

Page 3
recent years, and “living conditions in the camps are precarious and access to basic services
remains a major challenge for the displaced population.”17 A vast majority of the
aforementioned individuals still living in camps/sites “are currently not targeted by partners for
durable solutions.”18
In October 2016, Hurricane Matthew impacted over 236,000 homes—“of which 44% were
destroyed and 42% severely damaged” 19—and displaced approximately 175,000 people in
Haiti.20 In areas most affected by the storm, approximately 90% of homes were destroyed.21
IOM reported in June 2017 that 3,597 individuals were living in 48 displacement sites due to the
impact of Hurricane Matthew and spring flooding in Grande’ Anse and Sud departments22.23
While post-earthquake IDP camps are closing, Haiti’s housing shortage remains far from
resolved. The 2010 earthquake exacerbated the country’s pre-existing shortage of adequate and
affordable housing.24 The Government of Haiti has estimated that the country will need as many
as 500,000 additional housing units over the next 10 years to make up for its shortage prior to the
earthquake, to replace housing lost as a result of damage from the disaster, and to accommodate
projected urban growth.25
CHOLERA EPIDEMIC & HEALTHCARE
Haiti’s longstanding public health challenges were exacerbated by the January 2010 earthquake
and an ongoing cholera epidemic that started in October 2010.26 According to the U.S. Agency
for International Development (USAID), “even before the 2010 earthquake, Haiti’s healthcare
system was not able to respond to the needs for basic healthcare services.”27 The 2010
earthquake significantly impacted Haiti’s health sector, destroying 50 health centers, the
Ministry of Health, and part of the country’s primary teaching hospital.28 Damages from both
the 2010 earthquake and Hurricane Matthew in October 2016—the latter of which affected 99
17
18
19
Haiti Humanitarian Bulletin - Issue 64 | May 2017, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (UNOCHA), p.4, Jun. 11, 2017.
20
Thomas, Alice, Two Steps Back: Haiti Still Reeling from Hurricane Matthew, Refugees International, p.4, April
2017.
21
2017.
22
Haiti is divided administratively into 10 departments. See The World Factbook: Haiti, CIA, Jul. 27, 2017,
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ha.html, (last visited Aug. 17, 2017).
23
24
Haiti - Housing and Settlements Fact Sheet, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), p.1, Mar.
2017.
25
2017.
26
Haiti - Health Fact Sheet, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), p.1, Mar. 2017.
27
Haiti – Health Infrastructure Fact Sheet, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), p.1, Mar. 2017.
28
Haiti – Health Infrastructure Fact Sheet, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), p.1, Mar. 2017;
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health facilities29—“exacerbated an existing lack of adequate health infrastructure, such as health

care and storage facilities, as well as access to electricity, clean water and sanitation systems.”30
In June 2017, the United Nations Economic and Social Council reported that “Haiti has some of
the worst health indicators in the world, which continue to stymie economic development.”31
Approximately 40 percent of the population lacks access to fundamental health and nutrition
services.32 Maternal and infant mortality rates are respectively three and five times higher than
the regional averages,33 and “only 45 percent of all children between the ages of 12 months and
23 months are fully vaccinated.”34 Public spending in the health sector is low, and the country
has a limited number of health professionals and a deficit of health infrastructure.35
A cholera epidemic that began in October 2010—reportedly the largest such outbreak of cholera
in recent history—remains ongoing and continues to place additional strains on Haiti’s
beleaguered public health system.36 From October 2010 through June 2017, there have been an
estimated 813,000 cases of cholera in Haiti, and 9,676 people have been killed by the disease
(which was allegedly introduced by United Nations peacekeepers).37
While progress has been made in combatting cholera since the peak of the epidemic in 2011,38
cholera has become endemic in Haiti, “with seasonal peaks regularly triggering emergency
interventions.”39 In 2016, the number of suspected cholera cases increased, mainly due to a
spike in suspected cases in areas affected by Hurricane Matthew in the aftermath of the storm.40
29
Haiti: Hurricane Matthew Humanitarian Dashboard (as of Feb. 2017), United Nations Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), p.1, Mar. 3, 2017.
30
31
Report of the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Haiti, United Nations Economic and Social Council, p.4, Jun. 29, 2017.
32
33
Better Spending, Better Care: A look at Haiti’s Health Financing, The World Bank,
http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/publication/better-spending-better-care-a-look-at-haitis-health-financing
(last visited Aug. 21, 2017).
34
35
36
Haiti - Health Fact Sheet, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), p.1, Mar. 2017; Lefevre,
Adrienne, The Consequences of Contaminated Water, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mar. 21, 2017,
https://blogs.cdc.gov/global/2017/03/21/the-consequences-of-contaminated-water/ (last visited Aug. 21, 2017).
37
Hurricane Matthew: '1.4 million need help in Haiti', Al Jazeera, Oct. 11, 2016; Partlow, Joshua, In the wake of
Matthew, Haitian towns struggle with cholera, Washington Post, Oct. 9, 2016; Zavis, Alexandra, U.N. admits a role
in deadly Haiti cholera epidemic, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 18, 2016; Yakupitiyage, Tharanga, UN “Profoundly
Sorry” for Haiti Cholera Outbreak, Inter Press Service, Dec. 2, 2016; Haiti: Cholera figures (as of 30 June 2017),
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), Jul. 24, 2017.
38
Fact Sheet: Cholera situation in Haiti, 1 January/15 April 2017, United Nations Country Team in Haiti, Apr. 27,
2017.
39
Haiti: Fighting the Spread of Mosquito-Borne Diseases, Doctors Without Borders/Médicins Sans Frontières
(MSF), Jul. 24, 2017, http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/haiti-fighting-spread-mosquito-borne-diseases
40
New approach to cholera in Haiti – Report of the Secretary General, United Nations General Assembly, p.4, May
3, 2017.
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While the number of suspected cases of cholera has declined since 2016,41 Haiti nevertheless
remains “extremely vulnerable” to the disease.42 According to the United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), cholera continues to impact Haiti due to a
lack of funding for the country’s National Plan for the Elimination of Cholera (PNEC), weak
water and sanitation infrastructure, the lack of access to quality medical care, and high
population density and mobility to urban areas.43
ECONOMY
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with poverty, vulnerability to natural
disasters, corruption, and low levels of education serving as significant obstacles to sustained
economic development.44 Haiti’s weak infrastructure and the difficulty of doing business limit
investment, and the country remains vulnerable to damage from natural disasters and dependent
on foreign aid or direct budget support for more than 20% of its annual budget.45 The 2010
earthquake caused $7.8 billion in damages and economic losses—“equivalent to more than 120
percent of Haiti’s 2009 gross domestic product (GDP)”46—and destroyed an estimated 90
percent of buildings in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, including hospitals, schools, physical
infrastructure, and transportation facilities.47 Although Haiti’s economy started to recover from
the earthquake—with economic growth at 5.5% in 2011— GDP growth has slowed to 1.2% in
2015 and 1.4% in 2016 as a result of political uncertainty, drought, declining foreign aid, and
currency depreciation.48 According to June 2017 data from the World Bank, Haiti’s GDP growth
is forecasted to further decline to 0.5% in 2017.49
While Haiti has made slight improvements in reducing poverty levels and increasing access to
education and sanitation since 2000, a 2014 World Bank report noted that the “wealth generated
in the country is largely inadequate to meet the needs of the people.”50 According to the World
Bank, “more than 6 million out of 10.4 million (59%) Haitians live under the national poverty
line of US$ 2.42 per day and over 2.5 million (24%) live under the national extreme poverty line
41
3, 2017.
42
Fact Sheet: Cholera situation in Haiti, 1 January/15 April 2017, UN Country Team in Haiti, Apr. 27, 2017.
43
Haiti: Cholera figures (as of 30 June 2017), United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(UNOCHA), Jul. 24, 2017.
44
The World Factbook: Haiti, CIA, Jul. 27, 2017,
45
46
47
Haiti: Infrastructure, IHS Jane's Sentinel Security Assessment - Central America and the Caribbean, Aug. 15,
2017, http://janes.ihs.com/CentralAmericaCaribbean/Display/1302231 (last visited Aug. 25, 2017).
48
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ha.html, (last visited Aug. 17, 2017); Global
Economic Prospects: A Fragile Recovery, The World Bank Group, p.90, Jun. 2017.
49
Global Economic Prospects: A Fragile Recovery, The World Bank Group, p.90, Jun. 2017.
50
Poverty and Inclusion in Haiti: Social gains at timid pace, The World Bank Group, p.1-2, 2014.
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of US$1.23 per day.”51 An additional one million people are at risk of falling into poverty
following an external shock, such as a natural disaster.52 An estimated 40% of Haitians are
unemployed.53
According to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, Haiti “is highly dependent on
remittances from its diaspora.”54 Remittances—estimated at over $2 billion per year in 2015,
including more than $1.3 billion from Haitians living in the United States55—are Haiti’s
“primary source of foreign exchange, equivalent to more than a quarter of GDP, and nearly
double the combined value of Haitian exports and foreign direct investment.”56 Moreover,
remittances have also “helped to support education, health and the subsistence requirements” of
Haiti’s population.57
GOVERNANCE & POLITICAL INSTABILITY
Per IHS Jane’s, with its history of political instability, economic struggles, political violence, and
pervasive human rights abuses, Haiti “has long been seen as a model of poor and corrupt
governance.”58 Even before the earthquake, the Haitian government “could not or would not
deliver core functions to the majority of its people.”59 The January 2010 earthquake had an
immediate and significant impact on governance and the rule of law in Haiti, killing an estimated
18 percent of the country’s civil service and destroying key government infrastructure, including
the National Palace, the Parliament, 28 of 29 government ministry buildings, the Haitian
National Police’s headquarters, and various judicial facilities (including courts and correctional
facilities).60
On April 19, 2017, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse announced a project to rebuild the National
Palace, which was significantly damaged in the 2010 earthquake and subsequently demolished.61
51
The World Bank in Haiti: Overview, The World Bank, Jul. 27, 2017,
http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/overview#1 (last visited Aug. 18, 2017).
52
Poverty and Inclusion in Haiti: Social gains at timid pace, The World Bank Group, p.4, 2014.
53
Haiti - Economic Growth & Agricultural Development Fact Sheet, U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID), Mar. 2017.
54
55
Remittance Flows Worldwide in 2015, Pew Research Center, Aug. 31, 2016,
http://www.pewglobal.org/interactives/remittance-map/ (last visited Aug. 17, 2017).
56
57
58
Haiti: Executive Summary, IHS Jane's Sentinel Security Assessment - Central America and the Caribbean, Aug.
15, 2017, http://janes.ihs.com/Janes/Display/haits010-cac (last visited Aug. 25, 2017).
59
Haiti - Democracy, Human Rights & Governance Fact Sheet. U.S. Agency of International Development
(USAID), p.1, Mar. 2016.
60
Haiti: Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Jul.24,
2017, https://www.usaid.gov/where-we-work/latin-american-and-caribbean/haiti/democracy-human-rights-and-
governance (last visited Aug. 22, 2017).
61
Haiti to rebuild National Palace toppled in 2010 quake, AFP, Apr. 20, 2017; McFadden, David, Haiti to rebuild
National Palace smashed in 2010 earthquake, Associated Press, Apr. 19, 2017.
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Moïse stated that he would like for construction to start before the end of 2017.62 President Moïse
also pledged that the Parliament and the Palace of Justice would be rebuilt during his five-year
term in office.63 In August 2017, IHS Jane’s reported that, among the public buildings destroyed
by the earthquake, only the Supreme Court of Justice had been reconstructed and was operational
in 2017.64 In October 2017, the Haitian government launched an international architecture
competition for proposals to rebuild the National Palace.65
In June 2016, the October 2015 presidential election results were annulled, and new elections
were scheduled for October 2016—yet were subsequently postponed due to the impact of
Hurricane Matthew.66 On November 20, 2016, Jovenel Moïse, a banana plantation owner, was
elected president with enough votes to avoid a run-off.67 Moïse was officially declared the
winner of Haiti’s presidential election on January 4, 2017,68 and was sworn in on February 7.69
On January 29, 2017, Haiti held elections for eight senators and one seat in the lower chamber of
congress.70 Nationwide municipal elections were also held on this date for the first time since
December 5, 2006.71
While Haiti successfully completed its electoral process in February 2017 after two years of
contested results and political crises, its new government faces various challenges to promote
recovery and reconstruction.72 According to USAID, although Haiti possesses “the formal
structures of a democracy, many of these have yet to become fully functional.”73 Haiti’s state
institutions lack sufficient resources, and “provide limited services to only a small percentage of
the population.”74 In late June 2017, the United Nations Economic and Social Council reported
that, while Haiti’s new government has expressed a desire to improve the country’s political and
socioeconomic situation, “it is also clear that the Government has limited capacity to ensure a
62
Haiti to rebuild National Palace toppled in 2010 quake, AFP, Apr. 20, 2017.
63
McFadden, David, Haiti to rebuild National Palace smashed in 2010 earthquake, Associated Press, Apr. 19, 2017.
64
65
Fulcher, Merlin, Competition: National Palace, Haiti, The Architects’ Journal, Oct. 10, 2017,
https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/competitions/competition-national-palace-haiti/10024240.article (last visited
Oct. 12, 2017); Haiti - FLASH : Architecture Competition for the Reconstruction of the National Palace, Haiti Libre,
Oct. 4, 2017.
66
Domonoske, Camila, 14 Months After Elections Began, Haiti Finally Has A President-Elect, NPR, Jan. 4, 2017.
67
Charles, Jacqueline, Banana farmer wins Haiti presidency, according to preliminary results, Miami Herald, Nov.
28, 2016.
68
Haiti: Jovenel Moise confirmed winner of presidential election, BBC News, Jan. 4, 2017.
69
Businessman Jovenel Moise Sworn In as Haiti's President, Voice of America News, Feb. 7, 2017.
70
Low turnout in Haiti's local elections, AFP, Jan. 29, 2017.
71
McFadden, David, Haiti holds final round of election cycle started in 2015, Associated Press, Jan. 29, 2017;
Charles, Jacqueline, Haiti election cycle nears end with Sunday vote and more than 5,000 seats up for grabs, Miami
Herald, Jan. 27, 2017.
72
73
(USAID), p.1, Mar. 2017.
74
(USAID), p.1, Mar. 2017.
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public administration system that can effectively guarantee the rule of law and a functioning
justice system, promote the fight against corruption and effectively protect human rights.”75
In early October 2017, the Miami Herald reported that, “in recent weeks, Haiti has been engulfed
in protests over tax hikes, with massive and sometimes violent street demonstrations.”76 Anti-
government protests erupted in mid-September after the Haitian parliament approved the
government budget, which opponents have argued contains tax increases that would hurt
impoverished families. 77 Multiple demonstrations have occurred since mid-September, and the
protests have spread from Port-au-Prince to other areas of the country.78 Some of the protests
have become violent, with demonstrators reportedly throwing rocks, damaging property,
blocking traffic, and burning cars and tires, and the Haitian police responding to the unrest by
firing tear gas and water at protesters.79 At least two people have been killed and others have
been injured during the demonstrations.80
SECURITY
By creating new security vulnerabilities and stimulating an increase in crime, the 2010
earthquake had a deleterious impact on public security in Haiti.81 The escape of thousands of
prisoners and the diffusion of gangs throughout Port-au-Prince in the aftermath of the earthquake
overwhelmed Haiti’s historically weak justice system and police.82 An overall climate of
insecurity in IDP camps left many IDPs vulnerable to violence and crime, including gender-
based violence, theft, and domestic violence.83 Violence against women reportedly increased in
the aftermath of the earthquake.84
75
Report of the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Haiti, United Nations Economic and Social Council, p.4-5, Jun. 29,
2017.
76
Charles, Jacqueline, Haiti requests 18-month TPS extension from Trump administration, The Miami Herald, Oct.
9, 2017.
77
Violence erupts at budget opposition protest in Haiti, Agence France-Presse (AFP), Sep. 30, 2017; HAITI: Budget
proves contentious, LatinNews, Regional Report: Caribbean & Central America, Oct. 2017; Charles, Jacqueline,
Violent protest erupt in Haiti over budget passed on the eve of Hurricane Irma, The Miami Herald, Sep. 12, 2017.
78
79
80
81
Berg, Louis-Alexandre, Crime, Politics and Violence in Post-Earthquake Haiti, United States Institute of Peace,
p.1-2, Sep. 28, 2010.
82
p.1-2, Sep. 28, 2010.
83
p.1-2, Sep. 28, 2010.
84
Haiti: Violence against women, including sexual violence; state protection and support services (2012-June 2016),
Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Dec. 15, 2016 .
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Crime rates in Haiti are high, and the general security situation is “unpredictable.”85 The U.S.
Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security has reported that homicide, armed
robberies, and crimes against persons (including gender-based violence) are major concerns.86
Demonstrations, roadblocks, and political rallies regularly occur, and have at times led to violent
incidents.87 Violence against women is reportedly widespread, and has been characterized as a
chronic or systemic problem.88 Impunity levels are high, and the capacity of Haiti’s police force
is “relatively low.”89 In general, Haitians “lack basic policing services,” and criminals are
reportedly able to operate without fear of the police.90
According to the U.S. Department of State, “rates of kidnapping, murder, and rape rose in
2016.”91 The Government of the United Kingdom has reported that “crime levels have
continued to increase in 2017.”92 In July 2017, the United Nations Secretary General reported
that, since his previous report in March 2017, “growing tensions linked to socioeconomic
grievances notwithstanding, key indicators, including crime and civil protests, remained within
historically established statistical parameters.”93
MINUSTAH
In 2004, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) was established
following a rebellion that led to the removal of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and subsequent
violence, including armed clashes, killings, and kidnappings.94 In the aftermath of the violence
and the establishment of MINUSTAH, “uniformed U.N. troops provided the only real security” in
Haiti for years.95 However, the Associated Press reported in March 2017 that, “these days, Haiti’s
police do most of the heavy lifting and the mood has changed.”96
85
Haiti – Safety and Security, Government of Canada, Jul. 21, 2017, https://travel.gc.ca/destinations/haiti (last
visited Aug. 22, 2017); Haiti – Safety and Security, GOV.UK, https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-
advice/haiti/safety-and-security (last visited Aug. 22, 2017).
86
Haiti 2017 Crime & Safety Report, U.S. Department of State, Apr. 26, 2017.
87
visited Aug. 22, 2017)
88
Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Dec. 15, 2016.
89
90
91
Haiti Travel Warning, U.S. Department of State, May 22, 2017,
https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/alertswarnings/haiti-travel-warning.html (last visited Aug. 22, 2017).
92
Haiti – Safety and Security, GOV.UK, https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/haiti/safety-and-security (last
visited Aug. 22, 2017).
93
Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, United Nations Security
Council, p.5, July 12, 2017.
94
Haiti is Ready for UN Peacekeepers to Leave Soon, Associated Press, Mar. 9, 2017.
95
96
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MINUSTAH’s tenure in Haiti has been controversial.97 The Los Angeles Times has described the
U.N. military presence in Haiti as “never really welcome,”98 while some Haitians view the U.N.
peacekeeping mission as “an occupying force,” 99 or as an incursion into Haiti’s sovereignty.100
In March 2017, the Associated Press characterized the peacekeepers’ tenure as “rocky,” noting
that they:
have earned praise for boosting security, paving the way to elections and providing
crucial support after disasters, particularly the devastating 2010 earthquake. But
some troops have also been accused of excessive force, rape and abandoning babies
they fathered.101
In addition, U.N. troops from Nepal are “widely blamed” for introducing cholera to the
country,102 with the source of cholera reportedly traced by scientists to a U.N. base.103 Moreover,
some U.N. troops have reportedly been “implicated in a sexual abuse scandal, including a sex ring
that exploited Haitian children.”104
On April 13, 2017, the United Nations Security Council decided that MINUSTAH “would
gradually draw down its military component during the next six months, finally withdrawing
from Haiti by 15 October 2017.”105 MINUSTAH will be replaced by the United Nations
Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH), which will seek to “help the Haitian
Government strengthen rule-of-law institutions, further develop and support the Haitian National
Police and engage in human rights monitoring, reporting and analysis.”106 MINUJUSTH will
comprise up to seven Formed Police Units (FPU) consisting of 980 personnel, and 295
Individual Police Officers for an initial six month period from October 16, 2017 to April 15,
2018.107 In July 2017, the United Nations Secretary General reported that “the ongoing
97
Simmons, Ann M., U.N. peacekeepers are leaving after more than two decades, but where does that leave Haiti?,
Los Angeles Times, Apr. 17, 2017; Lederer, Edith, The U.N. Just Unanimously Voted to End Its Peacekeeping
Mission in Haiti, Associated Press, Apr. 13, 2017.
98
Los Angeles Times, Apr. 17, 2017.
99
100
101
102
Charles, Jacqueline, A Haiti without U.N. peacekeepers? After almost 13 years, it may happen., Miami Herald,
Feb. 14, 2017.
103
104
105
Security Council decides UN Mission in Haiti will close by October; approves smaller follow-on operation, UN
News Service, Apr. 13, 2017.
106
In visit to Haiti, Security Council delegation to reaffirm support for country's stability and development, UN
News Service, Jun. 23, 2017.
107
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withdrawal of the MINUSTAH military and police components…has not affected the overall
security situation.”108
FOOD SECURITY
Damage from the 2010 earthquake exacerbated Haiti’s historic food security challenges. The
earthquake displaced over 600,000 people from urban to rural areas and caused significant
damage to physical infrastructure; these factors contributed to a sharp decline in income and food
availability, as well as an increase in the price of food in the aftermath of the earthquake.109
While the international community provided emergency food assistance and support for the
agricultural sector to help avert a post-earthquake food crisis, food insecurity has remained a
significant challenge for Haiti.110 Haiti depends on imports to meet more than 50 percent of its
food needs,111 and is extremely vulnerable to fluctuations in global food prices.112 Chronic
malnutrition impacts approximately half of Haiti’s population.113
In recent years, food and nutritional security in Haiti have gradually deteriorated due to the
impact of Tropical Storm Isaac and Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and three consecutive years of
severe drought (exacerbated by El Niño).114 Hurricane Matthew also exacerbated food insecurity
in Haiti.115 The impact of the hurricane caused an estimated $580 million in damages to the
country’s agricultural sector, and extensive damage to “crops, livestock and fisheries as well as
to infrastructure such as irrigation – with the most affected areas having up to 100 percent crop
damage or destruction.”116 Approximately “428,000 farmers were decapitalized” and food
108
109
Special Report: FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission to Haiti, Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations & The World Food Programme, Sep. 21, 2010,
http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/ak353e/ak353e00.htm, (last visited Aug. 21, 2017).
110
Haiti: six months on, agriculture needs more support, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,
Jul. 15, 2010, http://www.fao.org/emergencies/fao-in-action/stories/stories-detail/en/c/147984/, (last visited Aug. 21,
2017); Haiti – Agriculture and Food Security Fact Sheet, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), p.1,
Mar. 2017.
111
Haiti – Agriculture and Food Security Fact Sheet, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), p.1,
Mar. 2017.
112
Food Assistance Fact Sheet – Haiti, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Aug. 7, 2017.
113
Report of the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Haiti, United Nations Economic and Social Council, p.3, Jun. 29,
2017.
114
ECHO Factsheet – Haiti – June 2016, European Commission's Directorate-General for European Civil
Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, Jun. 10, 2016; Food Assistance Fact Sheet – Haiti, U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID), Aug. 7, 2017; ECHO Factsheet – Haiti – May 2017, European Commission's
Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, May 2017,
http://ec.europa.eu/echo/files/aid/countries/factsheets/haiti_en.pdf (last visited Aug. 21, 2017)
115
Mar. 2017.
116
Damages to agricultural sector in storm-hit Haiti estimated at $580 million – UN agency, UN News Centre, Nov.
23, 2016.
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production infrastructure was significantly impacted by the storm.117 In August 2017, USAID
reported that, “more than six months later, the storm's impact continues to drive elevated levels
of food insecurity in the worst-affected communities.”118 As of May 2017, approximately 5.82
million people were facing food insecurity in Haiti,119 including 2.35 million people who “were
severely food-insecure and in need of immediate assistance.”120
NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS
Due to its geographic location, weak infrastructure, and limited government resources, Haiti is
particularly susceptible to natural disasters.121 Per the World Bank, Haiti has been impacted by
natural disasters “almost every year since 1971, losing on average two percent of GDP every
year due to hydrometeorological events.”122 An estimated 98 percent of the Haitian population is
exposed to two or more types of natural disasters.123 As a result of its exposure to natural
hazards and the vulnerabilities of its population, Haiti “consistently ranks among the most
vulnerable countries in the world to disasters and climate change.”124 According to the 2017
Global Climate Risk Index, Haiti ranked as the third most affected country in the world by
extreme weather events from 1996 to 2015; during this time, Haiti averaged $222 million in
damages per year—equivalent to 1.49% of GDP on average.125
Located along the “hurricane belt,”126 Haiti is regularly impacted by tropical storms and
floods.127 Haiti suffered severe flooding in 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007.128 During the 2008
hurricane season, Haiti was impacted by four storms “which killed more than 800 people and
devastated nearly three-quarters of its agricultural land.”129 In the fall of 2012, Hurricane Sandy
117
118
Food Assistance Fact Sheet – Haiti, U.S.Agency for International Development (USAID), Aug. 7, 2017.
119
120
121
Five dead, 19 missing after Haiti rains, flooding – officials, Reuters, May 19, 2017.
122
World Bank Supports Haiti’s Post-Matthew Reconstruction, The World Bank, Jun. 8, 2017.
123
2017.
124
Thomas, Alice, Two Steps Back: Haiti Still Reeling from Hurricane Matthew, Refugees International, p.4-5,
April 2017.
125
Kreft, Sönke, Eckstein, David and Melchior, Inga, Global Climate Risk Index 2017, Germanwatch, p. 23, Nov.
2016.
126
2017.
127
Jones, Sam, Why is Haiti vulnerable to natural hazards and disasters?, The Guardian, Oct. 4, 2016.
128
129
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affected 1.8 million Haitians; flooded, damaged, or destroyed 18,000 homes; damaged key
infrastructure, including roads, hospitals, and schools; and killed 60 people.130
More recently, Haiti has been “grappling with a heavy rainy season” in 2017.131 The rainy
season, which began in April, has resulted in:
floods and landslides, damage to homes and destruction of harvests, especially in

the departments of South, Grand’Anse and Nippes, which were the most affected
departments by Hurricane Matthew. Erosion of roads have impacted access to
several communes, especially in the South department.132
By late May, at least seven people had been killed and 15,000 households were in need of
immediate humanitarian assistance.133 The rainy season coincides with hurricane season in
Haiti, which typically lasts from June 1 to November 30.134 In June 2017, the United Nations
Economic and Social Council reported that the Haitian government “has indicated that it does
not have the capacity in terms of equipment and personnel to mitigate any disaster that may
result” from the current hurricane season.135
On September 7, 2017, Hurricane Irma—a Category 5 hurricane—impacted northern Haiti (one

of the poorest regions of the country),136 with heavy rains, wind, and flooding causing
“significant damages in the Nord-Est, Nord-Ouest, Nord, Artibonite and Centre departments.”137
The impact of Hurricane Irma led to the evacuation of over 12,500 people, left one person dead
and another missing, and injured more than a dozen others.138 In addition, 4,903 homes were
flooded, 2,646 were damaged, and 466 were destroyed.139 Hurricane Irma also caused extensive
130
UN relief agency estimates 1.8 million Haitians have been affected by Hurricane Sandy, United Nations Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Nov. 2, 2012.
131
132
Haiti - Humanitarian Situation Report - August 2017, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), p.2, Aug.
2017.
133
Haiti Humanitarian Bulletin - Issue 65 | June-July 2017, United Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), p.1, Aug. 17, 2017; Five dead, 19 missing after Haiti rains, flooding – officials,
Reuters, May 19, 2017.
134
2017.
135
2017.
136
Charles, Jacqueline, Irma mostly spared Haiti. But for struggling farmers, the damages are devastating, The
Miami Herald, Sep. 9, 2017.
137
ACT Alliance Rapid Response Fund No. 13/2017: Hurricane Irma in Haiti, ACT Alliance, Sep. 26, 2017.
138
139
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damage to crops and livestock in affected areas,140 with an estimated 18,000 families in northern
Haiti losing their food crops due to the impact of the storm.141
Located along several major fault lines, Haiti has also been impacted by powerful earthquakes.142
In 2016, Haiti suffered from its third consecutive year of drought, which was exacerbated by El
Niño.143 Extensive deforestation exposes Haiti to and exacerbates flooding, mudslides, and soil
erosion.144
HURRICANE MATTHEW
The strongest hurricane to strike the country in more than 50 years and the third strongest ever
recorded in Haiti, Hurricane Matthew made landfall in southwestern Haiti as a Category 4
hurricane on October 4, 2016.145 With 145-mile-an-hour winds and torrential rains,146 Hurricane
Matthew “violently struck south-western Haiti…causing widespread damage, flooding and
displacement.”147 Heavy flooding occurred in the most affected departments, including
Grand’Anse, South, Nippes and South East departments.148 Per UNOCHA, the impact of the
hurricane occurred at a time when Haiti was “already facing an increase in the number of cholera
cases and severe food insecurity and malnutrition.”149
According to UNOCHA, Hurricane Matthew caused the greatest humanitarian crisis in Haiti
since the 2010 earthquake.150 Hurricane Matthew affected 2.1 million people in Haiti; of this
amount, 1.4 million were estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance in the aftermath of
140
After the Hurricane – an overview of the damage Irma and Maria left behind, International Federation of Red
Cross And Red Crescent Societies, Sep. 22, 2017.
141
Moloney, Anastasia, Floods leave Haitian farmers struggling in Irma's wake: U.N., Thomson Reuters
Foundation, Sep. 13, 2017.
142
Jones, Sam, Why is Haiti vulnerable to natural hazards and disasters?, The Guardian, Oct. 4, 2016; Thomas,
Alice, Two Steps Back: Haiti Still Reeling from Hurricane Matthew, Refugees International, p.4, April 2017.
143
2017; WFP Haiti - Country Brief, World Food Programme, p.2, May 2017.
144
2017; Jones, Sam, Why is Haiti vulnerable to natural hazards and disasters?, The Guardian, Oct. 4, 2016.
145
Hurricane Matthew: '1.4 million need help in Haiti', Al Jazeera, Oct. 11, 2016; Haiti: Hurricane Matthew
Emergency Appeal n° MDRHT012, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, p.1, Oct. 6,
2016; Thomas, Alice, Two Steps Back: Haiti Still Reeling from Hurricane Matthew, Refugees International, p.4,
April 2017;
146
Beaubien, Jason, How Many Houses Did Hurricane Leave Standing In Port Salut, Haiti?, NPR Morning Edition,
Oct. 11, 2016; Guyler Delva, Joseph, Hurricane Matthew toll in Haiti rises to 1,000, dead buried in mass graves,
Reuters, Oct. 10, 2016.
147
Haiti: Hurricane Matthew – Situation Report No.6, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (UNOCHA), p.1-4, Oct. 10, 2016.
148
149
Affairs (UNOCHA), p.4, Oct. 10, 2016.
150
DHS000051

Page 15
the storm.151 An estimated 175,000 people were displaced,152 and 546 people were killed.153
Hurricane Matthew also caused “widespread damage to homes, roads, public infrastructure,
hospitals, and schools.”154 Damages from Hurricane Matthew were estimated at nearly $2.8
billion—equivalent to 1/3 of Haiti’s gross domestic product155—and were particularly severe in
Haiti’s housing and food security sectors.156
In the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, the international humanitarian community coordinated

with the Government of Haiti to provide emergency humanitarian assistance to those affected by
the storm.157 Humanitarian assistance was provided in a variety of fields, including emergency
shelter, health, food security, protection, etc.158 In early March 2017, UNOCHA reported that
over 1 million people had been reached with humanitarian assistance in the most affected regions
of Grand’Anse, Sud and Nippes departments.159 UNOCHA also noted that the emergency
response was ending at this time, with the focus shifting to early recovery.160
According to a United Nations official, as of mid-April 2017, shelter and food remained scarce
in Haiti’s southern peninsula.161 In March 2017, an international non-governmental organization
reported that at least 13 people in Grand’Anse department had died due to hurricane related food
shortages in the region, and some Haitians were reportedly living in caves and eating poisonous
plants to survive.162 UNOCHA reported in May 2017 that “affected people continue to live in
precarious conditions, particularly in hard-to-reach areas.”163
151
152
2017.
153
154
2017.
155
Charles, Jacqueline, Senate Democrats to Trump administration: Let Haitians stay, Miami Herald, Apr. 27, 2017;
Charles, Jacqueline, Six months after Hurricane Matthew, food, shelter still scarce in Haiti, Miami Herald, Apr. 12,
2017.
156
157
158
159
Haiti: Hurricane Matthew Situation Report No.35 (04 March 2017), United Nations Office for the Coordination
160
161
Charles, Jacqueline, Six months after Hurricane Matthew, food, shelter still scarce in Haiti, Miami Herald, Apr.
12, 2017.
162
Charles, Jacqueline, Desperate Haitians living in caves, eating toxic plants in post-hurricane Haiti, Miami Herald,
Mar. 24, 2017.
163
DHS000052

Page 16
The Haitian government and the international community continued to support Haiti’s efforts to
recover from Hurricane Matthew during the summer of 2017. On June 30, 2017, President
Jovenel Moïse declared a state of emergency in areas hit by the storm.164 The World Bank
announced grants of $100 million in June 2017 and an additional $100 million in July 2017 to
support Haiti’s recovery from the impact of Hurricane Matthew.165 In addition, the Miami
Herald reported in July 2017 that the Inter-American Development Bank would reroute $85
million in funding to support reconstruction efforts in southern Haiti.166
Nevertheless, in June 2017, the World Bank reported that reconstruction needs from Hurricane
Matthew “were assessed at US$2.2 billion or 25 percent of GDP.”167 In July 2017, the Miami
Herald reported that residents of the areas most impacted by Hurricane Matthew in southern
Haiti felt abandoned by international donors and the Haitian government.168 The Inter-
American Development Bank’s representative for Haiti told the Miami Herald in July 2017 that,
even with the additional funding from its organization for areas impacted by Hurricane Matthew:
“The situation is so dire that even if we fully disbursed the $85 million that we have
committed to the South after the hurricane, there are still a lot of people in need, a
lot of villages that were badly affected by the hurricane and need further
investment,” he said. “We will need lots more resources.”169
In October 2017, Agence France-Presse reported that—one year after Hurricane Matthew—Haiti
was still suffering from the consequences of the storm, and had yet to change “the way the
country prepares for natural disasters.”170
HAITIAN RETURNEES FROM THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
A crackdown on undocumented migrants in the Dominican Republic has contributed to an influx

of returnees to Haiti in recent years.171 From July 2015 through July 2017, IOM recorded that
164
Charles, Jacqueline, After Hurricane Matthew, many victims in Haiti feel abandoned, Miami Herald, Jul. 14,
2017.
165
2017; World Bank Approves Additional US$80 Million for Haiti’s Hurricane Recovery, The World Bank, Jun. 14,
2017; Haiti - Post-Matthew : Additional $80M grants from the World Bank, Haiti Libre, Jun. 15, 2017.
166
2017.
167
168
2017.
169
2017.
170
A year after Hurricane Matthew, Haiti more vulnerable than ever, Agence France-Presse (AFP), Oct. 4, 2017.
171
Azam, Ahmed, Forced to Flee Dominican Republic for Haiti, Migrants Land in Limbo, The New York Times,
Dec. 12, 2015; Partlow, Joshua, A Haitian border town struggles with new rules in the Dominican Republic, The
Washington Post, Jun. 24, 2015; McFadden, David, An aid agency is relocating several thousand people who had
DHS000053

Page 17
215,121 Haitian migrants spontaneously returned or were deported to Haiti.172 In June 2017,
IOM reported that the “total number of returnees has averaged between 6000 and 8000
individuals on a monthly basis” since August 2016.173 However, the total number of returnees
may actually be higher, as IOM stated that it had only been able to monitor half of border
crossings between the two countries since September 2016 due to budget constraints.174
Deportations from the Dominican Republic have drastically increased since April 2017; July
2017 had the highest number of official deportations since October 2015.175
In July 2017, the United Nations Secretary-General reported that returnees from the Dominican
Republic:
continue to find themselves in a situation of vulnerability owing to the

insufficient reception capacity of the Haitian authorities and a lack of
reintegration opportunities. This group will likely continue to need assistance in
the foreseeable future, including with regard to the determination of their legal
status.176
Similarly, in August 2017, the Miami Herald commented on the Haitian government’s “inability
to absorb the influx” of returnees from the Dominican Republic, also noting that “their arrival,
mostly ignored by Haitian authorities, has burdened humanitarian organizations that have
struggled to help amid deep budget cuts and indifference.”177 Many migrants reportedly “arrive
in precarious conditions,”178 while some returnees reportedly live in “makeshift camps” along
the border similar to those inhabited by IDPs from the 2010 earthquake.179
fled to Haiti from the Dominican Republic and set up informal settlements along the Haitian side of the border,
Associated Press, Mar. 30, 2016; Maloney, Anastasia, U.N. urges Dominican Republic to prevent deportations of
Haitians, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Jul. 29, 2015.
172
UN Migration Agency Opens Haiti's First Border Resource Centre to Help Returning Haitians, International
Organization for Migration, Jun. 27, 2017; IOM Haiti border monitoring sitrep: Tracking returnees from the
Dominican Republic, International Organization for Migration, International Organization for Migration, Aug. 3,
2017.
173
174
IOM Haiti border monitoring sitrep: Tracking returnees from the Dominican Republic, International Organization
for Migration, International Organization for Migration, Jun. 29, 2017.
175
for Migration, International Organization for Migration, Aug. 3, 2017; Haiti Humanitarian Bulletin - Issue 65 | June-
July 2017, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), p.1-2, Aug. 17, 2017.
176
177
Charles, Jacqueline, The countdown for Haitians with TPS has started. And that has many in Haiti worried.,
Miami Herald, Aug. 4, 2017.
178
Organization for Migration, Jun. 27, 2017.
179
Following political crisis Haiti must urgently advance human rights agenda, Amnesty International, Mar. 17,
2017.
DHS000054

Page 18
SUMMARY
Haiti’s recovery has been hindered by subsequent natural disasters and various political, social,
health, security, and economic conditions which have negatively impacted the country in recent
years. Haiti remains vulnerable to external shocks, and its internal fragility has left it unable to
adequately respond to a wide range of persistent humanitarian needs. As UNOCHA and the
United Nations Country Team in Haiti reported in January 2017:
With more than 98% of Haitians exposed to two or more types of disasters, the
impact of recurring natural disasters is particularly severe, especially considering
the already pre-existing protection, socio-economic and environmental
vulnerabilities and disparities. Most Haitians remain vulnerable to natural hazards
and disasters, such as floods, landslides, droughts, earthquakes and hurricanes.
With more than a half of its total population living in extreme poverty, Hurricane
Matthew has once more demonstrated Haiti's weakened ability to cope, recover and
adapt to shocks from natural disasters. Meanwhile, as a result of electoral-related
tensions, politically motivated demonstrations and insecurity have affected the
humanitarian operating environment since mid- 2015 against the backdrop of a
decreasing humanitarian presence in the field due to the lack of humanitarian
funding.180
Due to the conditions outlined in this report, Haiti’s recovery from the 2010 earthquake could be
characterized as falling into what one non-governmental organization recently described as “the
country’s tragic pattern of ‘one step forward, two steps back.’”181
180
Haiti: Humanitarian Response Plan January 2017 - December 2018, United Nations Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA)/United Nations Country Team in Haiti, p.6, Jan. 2017.
181
2017.
DHS000055
Exhibit 9
DHS-001-659-000601
DHS-001-659-000602
DHS-001-659-000603
DHS-001-659-000604
DHS-001-659-000605
DHS-001-659-000606
DHS-001-659-000627
DHS-001-659-000628
DHS-001-659-000629
Exhibit 10
Sejal Zota
From: Sejal Zota

Sent: Monday, May 14, 2018 3:55 PM
To: 'szota@nipnlg.org'
Subject: FW: SFRC MEMO: Trump Administration’s Decision to End TPS Designations for El
Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti Ignored Risks to U.S. National Security and Safety of
More Than 400,000 People

From: Pachon, Juan (Foreign Relations)
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 12:07 PM
Subject: MEMO: Trump Administration’s Decision to End TPS Designations for El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti Ignored
Risks to U.S. National Security and Safety of More Than 400,000 People
TO: Interested Parties

FROM: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democratic Staff
DATE: May 11, 2018
RE: Trump Administration’s Decision to End TPS Designations for El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti
Ignored Risks to U.S. National Security and Safety of More Than 400,000 People
“I am concerned that then-Secretary Tillerson recommended that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
terminate the TPS designations for El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras in deliberate disregard of the counsel and
expertise of State Department officials in Washington and at the U.S. Embassies in all three countries.”
“Then-Secretary Tillerson issued his recommendation […] despite several strong warnings that doing so would
harm U.S. national security and […] that the governments of El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras […] could not
guarantee the safety and well-being of TPS beneficiaries returning to their country of origin, nor the U.S.-
citizen children that would be traveling with them.”
- Senator Bob Menendez, Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in his May
4, 2018 letter to the Government Accountability Office
SUMMARY
Based on an investigation by Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) Democratic Staff, the Washington
Post released an extensive report on how Trump Administration officials ignored warnings from U.S. diplomats
about ending the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations for El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras.
Over multiple months, SFRC Democratic Staff conducted a comprehensive in-person review of the Department
of State’s role in the termination of the TPS designations for El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras, including the
examination of the following unclassified documents:
 An October 31, 2017 letter from then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to then-Acting Secretary of
Homeland Security Elaine Duke, which contained his recommendations on TPS;
1
 Department of State Recommendations Regarding TPS for El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras, which
accompanied then-Secretary Tillerson’s October 31, 2017 letter; and
 Diplomatic cables from the U.S. Embassies in El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras related to the
Embassies’ recommendations regarding TPS designations (Cable numbers: San Salvador 860, dated
July 7, 2017; Port-au-Prince 2744, dated August 3, 2017; and Tegucigalpa 618, dated June 29,
2017).
SFRC Democratic Staff determined that then-Secretary Tillerson’s recommendation that the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) should terminate the TPS designations for El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras was the
result of an overtly political process. That process deliberately disregarded the counsel and expertise of
officials at the State Department and the U.S. Embassies in all three countries, which uniformly argued for an
extension of the TPS designations. SFRC Democratic Staff also determined that the White House Domestic
Policy Council sought repeatedly to influence the decision-making processes at the State Department and DHS
in order to ensure a pre-determined outcome: the termination of TPS designations for all three countries.
Moreover, in issuing his recommendation to terminate the TPS designations for El Salvador, Haiti and
Honduras, then-Secretary Tillerson ignored a body of evidence about the negative consequences for U.S.
national security and risks to the physical safety of TPS beneficiaries and the U.S.-citizen children that may
accompany them to their country of origin.
In the aftermath of the Washington Post report, former U.S. Ambassadors further cautioned about the perils of
ending TPS designations for these countries, and leading independent experts highlighted the reckless nature
and cruel consequences of the Administration’s decision.
The U.S. Congress cannot ignore these conclusions, which demand bipartisan action.
Secretary of State Pompeo must reexamine his predecessor’s flawed decision and issue a new
recommendation that properly addresses the risks to U.S. national security and the safety of TPS
beneficiaries and their U.S.-citizen children.
MAIN CONCLUSIONS
 In his October 31, 2017 letter recommending termination of the TPS designations for El Salvador and
Honduras, then-Secretary Tillerson observed that the decision would likely prompt a “backlash” towards
the United States and “undermine” U.S. foreign policy objectives in Central America.
 Then-Secretary Tillerson also stated in his October 31, 2017 letter that ending the TPS designations for
El Salvador and Honduras may lead to “retaliatory actions” by both governments that would be counter
to U.S. national security interests, including a potential reduction in bilateral cooperation to address
narcotics trafficking and the illicit activities of criminal gangs, such as MS-13.
 In the Department of State Recommendations Regarding TPS for El Salvador, Haiti and Honduras, the
State Department maintained that all three governments lacked sufficient capacity to repatriate tens of
thousands of individuals and therefore would not be able to guarantee the safety of returning citizens and
their accompanying U.S.-citizen children.
 The Department of State Recommendations Regarding TPS for El Salvador and Honduras assessed that
the prevalence of violence and lack of economic opportunities in both countries would leave some
repatriated TPS beneficiaries and their accompanying U.S.-citizen children vulnerable to recruitment to
criminal gangs, such as MS-13, or other forms of illicit employment.
2
 In the Department of State Recommendations Regarding TPS for El Salvador and the diplomatic cable
from the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador, the State Department and the U.S. Embassy asserted that limited
government capacity, the prevalence of violence, and limited economic opportunities meant that
repatriating more than 190,000 TPS beneficiaries – who may be accompanied by more than 200,000
U.S.-citizen children – would likely accelerate “illegal immigration” to the United States.
 The Department of State Recommendations for El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras stated that it would not
be contrary to U.S. national interests to allow TPS beneficiaries from all three countries to remain in the
United States.
 In diplomatic cables, officials at the U.S. Embassies in El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras all stated that it
would be in the “U.S. national interest” to renew the TPS designations for their respective countries.
 In a diplomatic cable, officials from the U.S. Embassy in Haiti observed that repatriating tens of
thousands of TPS beneficiaries would pose challenges to the Haitian National Police’s ability to
guarantee security throughout the country.
 In a diplomatic cable, officials from the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador maintained that ending the TPS
designation could lead to a response by the Government of El Salvador that undermines bilateral efforts
to address transnational criminal organizations and criminal gangs such as MS-13.
 Then-Secretary Tillerson’s recommendation in his October 31, 2017 letter to terminate the TPS
designations for El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras disregarded the recommendations of the U.S.
Embassies in each country, as well as assessments by the State Department and the three U.S. Embassies
regarding the likely challenges for U.S. national security and the risks to the safety of TPS beneficiaries
returning to their country of origin with accompanying U.S.-citizen children.
 The White House Domestic Policy Council sought to repeatedly influence the decision-making
processes at the State Department and DHS in order to ensure a pre-determined outcome that would
advance the Administration’s political agenda on immigration.
STATUTORY AUTHORITY FOR TPS
Country Individuals with TPS[1] # of U.S.-citizen children of

TPS Beneficiaries[2]
El Salvador 262,526 192,700
Haiti 58,557 53,500
Honduras 86,031 27,000
Total 407,114 273,200
Data provided to the Congressional Research Service by U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services as of October
2017 indicates that more than 400,000 people from El Salvador, Haiti and Honduras were beneficiaries of TPS.
Estimates by the Center for Migration Studies show that TPS beneficiaries from the three countries have more
than 270,000 U.S.-citizen children. This combined total underscores the human impact of the Trump
Administration’s flawed decision and marks a departure from longstanding interpretation of U.S. statute.
Since 1990, federal immigration law has provided a statutory mechanism by which aliens present in the United
States from countries facing armed conflict, natural disaster, or other extraordinary conditions can temporarily
3
remain and work in the United States. Under Section 244 of the INA, DHS in consultation with the State
Department may designate a country for TPS on one of the following grounds[3]:
 There is an ongoing armed conflict that prevents the safe return of nationals from that country;
 There has been an environmental disaster in the country (such as an earthquake, flood, drought, or
epidemic) that substantially disrupts living conditions in the area affected; the country is unable to
adequately handle the return of alien nationals; and the country has officially requested TPS designation;
or
 There are "extraordinary and temporary conditions" in the foreign country that prevent alien nationals
from safely returning (unless the agency finds that permitting the aliens to remain temporarily in the
United States is contrary to the national interest of the United States).
Under the TPS statute, the Secretary must periodically re-evaluate country designations. At least 60 days before
a particular designation expires, the Secretary must “review the conditions in the foreign state… for which a
designation is in effect” and determine whether the country still meets the conditions for TPS.[4] This periodic-
review requirement also entails consultations with appropriate government agencies and publication of notice in
the Federal Register.
Although TPS, by its terms, is a temporary designation, DHS has repeatedly extended TPS designations in
many instances. Under both Republican and Democratic Administrations, TPS designations have been regularly
extended based on a holistic assessment of the countries’ ability to repatriate and reabsorb their citizens. Under
previous Administrations, DHS regularly considered intervening natural disasters, conflicts, and other serious
social or economic problems as relevant factors when deciding whether to continue or instead terminate a TPS
designation.
However, under the Trump Administration, DHS has adopted a new and strict interpretation of the statute
governing TPS. The Administration argues that TPS can only be renewed if “conditions upon which the
country’s original designation was based” with “an assessment of whether those originating conditions continue
to exist.”[5] This interpretation resulted in the termination of TPS designations for El Salvador, Haiti, and
Honduras.
This Administration’s termination of TPS for El Salvador, Haiti and Honduras is arguably contrary to a clear
reading of the statute and drastically departs from past practice by various Administrations that considered a
variety of factors and conditions that partially existed or did not exist at the time of the original TPS designation
when extending TPS. The interpretation of the TPS statute by this Administration is extremely troubling and
highly suspect given the Administration’s anti-immigrant policies.

[1]
Congressional Research Service, Temporary Protected Status: Overview and Current Issues (Jan. 17, 2018)
4
[2]
Center for Migration Studies, A Statistical and Demographic Profile of the U.S. Temporary Protected Status
Populations from El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti (August 2017) available at
http://cmsny.org/publications/jmhs-tps-elsalvador-honduras-haiti/
[3]
8 U.S.C. §1254a(b)(1).
[4]
8 U.S.C. §1254a(b)(3).
[5]
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen Announcement
on Temporary Protected Status for El Salvador (Jan. 8, 2018) available
at https://www.dhs.gov/news/2018/05/04/secretary-homeland-security-kirstjen-m-nielsen-announcement-
temporary-protected; U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Acting Secretary Elaine Duke Announcement On
Temporary Protected Status for Haiti (Nov. 20, 2017) available at
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2017/11/20/acting-secretary-elaine-duke-announcement-temporary-protected-status-
haiti
5
Exhibit 11
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
UNCLASSIFIED u·.s. Department of State
Case 1:18-cv-01599-WFK-ST Case No.
Document F~2017-17275
21-11 Doc No. C06541406
Filed 05/31/18 Date:
Page 25 of 05/07/2018.
28 PageID #: 367
--~RELEASE IN PART_·]
85 ."
Hartmann, Lorraine (Lori)
From; Frideres, Taryn F

Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2017 8:39PM
To: Hall, Travis J
C~:. S_SpeciaiAssistants
Subject: RE: Country Condition Reports: S Decisions on "TPS in Central Am~rica" - 201716812
Great, thanks!
Official - SBU
UNCLASSIFIED
From: Hall; Travis J

Sent: Tuesday, October 31,2017 4:06PM
To: Frideres, Taryn F <FrideresTF@state.gov>
i
Cc: S SpeciaiAssistants <S_SpeciaiAssistants@state.gov> 'I
Subj;ct: FW: Countrv Condition Reports: Decisions o~ "TPS in Central America"- 201716812.
s
Taryn,
FYSA, PRM also reviewed the country condition reports. Records confirms the letter and four reports were sent over to
· DHS at 2:15p.m. this afternoon.
Travis·
Travis Hall
Special Assistant
Office of the Secretary
202-647-5298
Official - SBU
UNCLASSIFIED
From: Hefright, Brook E · •

To: Hall, Travis J <HaiiTJ@state.gov> ·
Cc: PRM-Staff Assistant <PRM-StaffAssistant@state.gov>; Records Unit Mailbox <RecordsUnitMailbox@state.gov>;
Hartle, Keleigh M <HartleKM@state.gov>; S_SpeciaiAssistants <S SpeciaiAssistants@state.gov>; Ashe, Christopher C ·
<AsheCC@state.gov>; Weise, Adam J <WeiseAJ@state.gov>
Subject: RE: Country-Condition Reports: S Decisions ori "TP? in Central America"- 201716812
t;ti Travis -I have reviewed Tabs 3-6 in "Final Documents" in Everest. I cao confirm that these versions have been edited
to reflect the recommendations ifl the Secretary's signed letter, 85
Assuming these are the versions to be transmitted to DHS, they should be good to ·
L-~~~----------------~
go. Thanks, Brook
From: Hefright, Brook E

Sent: Tuesday, October 31; 2017 3:34PM
To: Hall, Travis J
25
UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Departm~nt of State Case No.F-2017-17275 Doc No. C06541406 Date: 05/07/2018
UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of Document
Case 1:18-cv-01599-WFK-ST State Case No. F-2017-17275
21-11 Doc No. Page
Filed 05/31/18 C06541406
26 of Date: 05/07/2018
28 PageID #: 368
. ./
Cc: PRM-Staff Assistant; Records Unit Mailbox; Hartle, Keleigh M; S_SpeciaiAssistants; Ashe, Christopher C; Weise, Adam
J
·subject:. RE: Country Condition Reports: S Decisions on ''TPS in Central America"- 201716812
..
Hi Travis- I'll review them quickly. Just to confirm, the country conditions reports that will be transmitted to DHS are
these four "Final Documents". in Everest, correct?
Tab 3: El Salvador
Tab 4: Haiti
Tab 5: Honduras
Tab 6: Nicaragua
From: Weise, Adam J .

To: Hall, Travis J; Ashe, Christopher C
Cc:. PRM-Staff Assistant; Hefright, Brook E; Records Unit Mailbox; Hartle, Keleigh M; S_SpeciaiAssistants
Subject: RE: Country Condition Reports: S Decisions on ''TPS in Central America"- 201716812
Chris,
I emailed you these o.n the high-side.
Best,
Adam
Official - SBU
UNCLASSIFIED
From: Hall, Travis J

Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2017 3:27PM ·'I
To: Ashe, Christopher C ·
Cc: PRM-Staff Assistant; Hefright, BrookE; Weise, Adam J; Records Unit Mailbox; Hartle, Keleigh M; S_SpeciaiAssistants
Subject: RE: Country Condition Reports: S Decisions on 'TPS in Central America"- 201716812
Chris,
\
Thank you very much for flagging. Before approving the memo in Everest we attempted to update the reports to delete
the portions the Secretary disapproved. I am copying my colleagues in Correspondence'and Records as the package is
currently in their workspace. PRM Staff Assistances should have received the final copy of the memo via Evere.st'when
· we approved the memo. Can your staff take a quick look at the reports to double-check we didn't miss anything?
Thanks,
·Travis
Thanks
Travis Hall
Special Assistant
Office of the Secretary
202-647-5298
Official - SBU
26
UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2017-17275 Doc No. C06541406 Date: 05/07/2018
UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of Document
Case 1:18-cv-01599-WFK-ST State Case No. F-2017-17275
21-11 Doc No. Page
Filed 05/31/18 C06541406
27 of Date: 05/07/2018
28 PageID #: 369
UNCLASSIFIED
From: Ashe, Christopher C

To: Weise, Adam J <WeiseAJ@state.gov>; Hall, Travis J <HaiiTJ@state.gov>
Cc: PRM·Staff Assistant <PRM·StaffAssistant@state.gov>; Hefright, BrookE <HefrightBE@state.gov>
Subject: Country Condition Reports: S Decisions on "TPS in Central America" ~ 201716812
Hi Travis,
Thanks for the info below. Just to triple flag for you that Brook will send thrqugh the Staff Assistants (on the
high side) the Country Condition Reports! --·---· - 85
1
Clear as mud? If not -just let us know.
Thanks,
Chris ·
Christopher C. Ashe. .
Director (Acting)- Office of International Migration
Bureau of Populatio'1_, Migration, and Refugees
·I
United States Departmen.t of State
(202) 453-9212
Official - SBU
UNCLASSIFIED
. From: Weise, Adam J .

To:PRM-DAS
Cc: PRM-Staff Assistant; Ashe, Christopher C; Hefright, Brook E
Subject: FW: S Decisions on "TPS in Central America"- 201716812
Official - SBU
UNCLASSIFIED
From: Hall, Travis J

Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2017 3:07 PM
To: PRM-'Staff Assistant; WHAStaffers; Frideres, Taryn F .
Cc: S_SpeciaiAssistants; SES_4; Records Unit Mailbox; Hartle, Keleigh M
Subject: S Decisions on '.'TPS in Central America"- 201716812
PRM, S/P and WHA colleagues,
UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State. Case No. F-2017-17275. Doc No. C06541406. Date: 05/07/2018
27
UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State
Case 1:18-cv-01599-WFK-ST Case No.
Document F-2017-17275
21-11 Doc No. Page
Filed 05/31/18 C06541406 Date:
28 of 28 05/07/2018
PageID #: 370
Our. apologies for any confusion regarding S decisions on the memo. Please see the amended recommendations and
decisions below: ·
85
:..___ _ _ ___,!Records is currently ~orking to send the signed letter and country reports to DHS.
Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions.
Thanks,
Travis
Travis Hall
Special Assistant
Office o~ the Secretary
202-f:!47.~5298
\ .
Official - SBU ·
UNCLASSIFIED
) .
4 .
UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2017-17275 Doc No. C06541406 Date: 05/07/2018
28
Exhibit 12
PRE-DECISIONAL / DELIBERATIVE
U.S. Department of Homeland Security

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
Office ofthe Director (MS 2000)
U.S. Citizenship
and Immigration
Services
November 3. 2017
DECISION
MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY
/n
FROM: L. Francis Cissna *~) 7y\
Director
SUBJECT: Haiti's Designation for Temporary Protected Status
Purpose: Haiti's existing designation for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) will expire on
January 22, 2018. At least 60 days before the expiration of a TPS designation, the Secretary, after
consultation with appropriate U.S. Government agencies, must review the conditions in a country
designated for TPS to determine whether the conditions supporting the designation continue to be
met. If the Secretary determines that the country no longer meets the statutory conditions for
designation, she shall terminate the designation. If the Secretary does not determine, however,
that the conditions for designation are no longer met, the TPS designation will be extended for 6
months, or in the Secretary's discretion, 12 or 18 months. B5
Haiti's TPS Designation: Following the devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti
on January 12, 2010, former Secretary Napolitano designated Haiti for TPS on January 21, 2010.
due to extraordinary and temporary conditions resulting from the earthquake." The designation
1See Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) § 244(b)(3)(A-C), 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(3)(A-C); see also Attachment A:
Temporary Protected Status Legal Authority.
2See Designation of Haiti for Temporary Protected Status, 75 Fed. Reg. 3476 (Jan. 21, 2010).
DHS000031
Haiti's Designation for Temporary Protected Status
Page 2
was based on extraordinary and temporary conditions"5 rather than environmental disaster because
the Haitian government had not requested designation for TPS—a statutory requirement fora
designation based on an environmental disaster.
The reasons provided for Haiti's designation for TPS in the Federal Register at the timeof the
initial 2010 designation included the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that "destroyed most of the capital
city;" the "substantial'* death toll; that "one third of Haiti's population" was affected by the
earthquake; that "concrete homes [had] collapsed and hospitals [were] overflowing with victims;"
the destruction of many government buildings, including the Presidential Palace; the "severely
affected" critical infrastructure, including electricity, water, telephone, roads, the airport, hospitals,
and schools; scarcity of food, water, and fuel. At the time, the Secretary estimated that there
would be between 100,000 and 200,000 nationals of Haiti who would be eligible for TPS.
The Secretary then extended the existing designation and redesignated Haiti for TPS on May 19,
2011.5 The reasons provided for Haiti's 2011 redesignation and extension of TPS in the Federal
Register included that the 2010 earthquake remained responsible for more than one million
Haitians left homeless or living in 1,300 internally displaced persons (IDP) camps that were
"crowded and vulnerable to Hooding, crime (including gender-based violence), and disease;" and
the choleraoutbreak. Additionally, the notice reiterated the high death toll and large numberof
persons affected by the 2010 earthquake, and the large number of buildings destroyed by the
earthquake. At the time, the Secretary estimated that approximately 10,000 additional individuals
would be eligible for TPS under the redesignation.
Haiti's designation has been extended four times since the 2011 redesignation. On May 24, 2017,
former Secretary Kelly extended Haiti's TPS designation for a limited period of 6 months, with
strong public messaging to the Haitian community to prepare for their return to their homeland.
To be eligible for TPS under Haiti's designation, along with meeting the other eligibility
requirements, individuals must have continuously resided in the United States since January 12,
2011, and have been continuously physically present in the United States since July 23, 2011.
There are approximately 58,700 Haitian TPS beneficiaries.7 Ofthe 46,000 re-registration
applications USCIS estimated it would receive for the recent six-month extension, USCIS has
received approximately 40,000 to date. Based on these statistics, USCIS estimates the filing of
approximately 40,000 re-registration applications if Haiti's designation for TPS is extended.
3INA§ 244(b)(1)(C).
4 INA§ 244(b)(1)(B).
5SeeExtension and Redesignation of Haiti forTemporary Protected Status. 76 Fed. Reg. 29.000 (May 19, 2011).
6See Extension of the Designation of Haiti for Temporary Protected Status, 82 Fed. Reg. 23.830 (May 24, 2015).
7This total represents all individuals who have been granted TPS since Haiti's designation in 2010, and who have not
had their TPS withdrawn. Individuals may not re-register for a variety of reasons, including adjustment to another
valid immigration status, departure from the United States, or no longer being eligible for TPS. As a result, the
number of beneficiaries that USCIS expects to file for re-registration for TPS is lower than the total number of current
beneficiaries.
DHS000032
Page 3
Current Country Conditions: USCIS has conducted an in-depth review of conditions in Haiti.
The full report, upon which USCIS' assessment and recommendation are based, can be found in
Attachment B. In summary, Haiti has made significant progress in recovering from the 2010
earthquake, and no longer continues to meet the conditions for designation.
Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, but it had enormous problems long before,
and unrelated to, the 2010 earthquake. While lingering effects of the 2010 earthquake remain in
housing, infrastructure, damage to the economy, health, sanitation services, security risks, and
emergency response capacity, Haiti has made significant progress in addressing issues specific to
the earthquake. The number of IDPs from the earthquake has continued to decline. Since July
2010, 98% of the sites for IDPs have closed, and only approximately 38,000 of the estimated 2
million Haitians who lost their homes in the earthquake are still living in camps as of June 2017.
For those who do remain in these camps, gender-based violence continues to be a serious concern,
and a lack of personal security is pervasive, but neither is a post-earthquake phenomenon.
Additionally, the withdrawal of the United Nation's peacekeeping mission (MINUSTAH) has
gone smoothly, reflecting increased confidence in Haiti's ability to conduct its own policing. On
October 16, 2017, it was replaced by a successor operation (MINUJUSTH), a police-only force,
that will focus on strengthening rule of law; supporting and further developing the National Police;
and engaging in human rights monitoring, reporting, and analysis.
Haiti successfully completed its presidential election in February 2017. The 2010 earthquake
destroyed key government infrastructure, including dozens of primary federal buildings. The
Supreme Court of Justice is already reconstructed and operational and President MoTse is
marshalling plans for Haiti's continued recovery and redevelopment. In April 2017, President
MoYse announced a project to rebuild Haiti's National Palace, but reconstruction has not yet
commenced.
Following the earthquake that struck Haiti in January 2010, U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) ceased removing Haitians to Haiti. In 2011, ICE resumed the removal of
Haitians on a limited basis - specifically, those who had final orders of removal and had been
convicted of a serious crime. On September 22, 2016, former Secretary of Homeland Security,
Jeh Johnson, announced that DHS would resume removals of Haitian nationals in accordance with
ICE's existing enforcement priorities. Secretary Johnson's announcement included the following
rationale for the resumption of removals: "[TJhe situation in Haiti has improved sufficiently to
permit the U.S. government to remove Haitian nationals on a more regular basis, consistent with
the practice for nationals from other nations." In total, ICE has removed over 1,100 Haitians from
fiscal years 2014-2016 (382 in 2014, 433 in 2015, and 310 in 2016).
Annual GDPgrowth following the 2010 earthquake has been erratic, but predominantly positive,
ranging from as low as -5.5% (2010) to as high as 5.5% (2011), and averaging 1.9% over the
period.
DHS000033
Pa«e4
Year GDP growth (annual %)

2005 1.805
2006 2.249
2007 3.343
2008 0.844
2009 3.083
2010 -5.498
2011 5.524
2012 2.885
2013 4.234
2014 2.797
2015 1.185
2016 1.4
In May 2017, an estimated 5.8 million people (over 50 percent of the population) suffered from
food insecurity, as compared to 3.2 million in September 2016. The deterioration in food security
is the consequence of Hurricane Matthew's severe impact on southwest Haiti. Food insecurity is
expected to be further impacted by Hurricane Irma, which struck Haiti in September. Haiti's weak
public health system has grappled with a cholera epidemic that began in 2010 in the aftermath of
the earthquake, but cholera is currently at its lowest level since the outbreak started. Currently,
Haiti's food insecurity problems seem related to tropical storms and a drought rather than from
lingering effects of the 2010 earthquake.
Options
Your options include the following actions:
1) ExtendHaiti's Designationfor TPS B5
DHS000034
Page 5
B5
2) Terminate Haiti's Designation for TPS

B5
3) Redesignate Haitifor TPS

B5
4) No Decision/A utomatic Extension B5
DHS000035
Timeliness: You are requiredto provide timely notice of whetherexisting TPS designations will
be extended orterminated through publication in the Federal Register? Your earliest decision
will facilitate publication of notice in the Federal Register sufficiently in advance of the January
22,2018 expiration of Haiti's designation, providing predictability and clarity to Haitian nationals
with TPS and their employers. By statute, if you do not make a decision at least 60 days before
the expiration of the current designation (i.e., by November 23, 2017), then Haiti's designation
will automatically be extended for a minimum of6 months.9
Recommendation: Upon consideration of all of the factors, USCIS recommends that you B5
Decision:
1. Extend: Extend Haiti's existing designationfor (circle one):
6 months 12 months 18 months
Approve/date
2. Terminate: Terminate Haiti's designation withan orderlytransition period of(circle one

or specify period):
6 months 12 months / 18 months i Other
Approve/date 1>/2_C>/ t /
3. Redesignate: Extend Haiti's existing designation and simultaneously redesignate Haiti:
Specify duration of redesignation (6-18 months):
Specify continuous residence date for eligibility under redesignation (currently January 12,
2011):
Approve/date
8See INA § 244(b)(3)(A).

9See INA § 244(b)(3)(A), (C).
DHS000036

Page 7
4. No Decision/Automatic Extension: Delaya decision on Haiti's designation, resulting in

an extension of(circle one):
6 months 12 months 18 months
Approve/date
Attachments:
Attachment A: Temporary Protected Status Legal Authority
Attachment B: USCIS RAIO Research Unit Report on Conditions in Haiti
Attachment C: DOS Recommendations
DHS000037
Attachment A - Temporary Protected Status (TPS) Legal Authority
Pursuant to section 244(b)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. §
1254a(b)(1), the Secretary of Homeland Security (Secretary), after consultation with
appropriate agencies of the Government, may designate a foreign State (or part thereof)
for TPS. The Secretary may then grant TPS to eligible nationals of that foreign State (or
aliens having no nationality who last habitually resided in that State).
At least 60 days before the expiration of a TPS designation, the Secretary, after
consultations with appropriate agencies of the Government, must review the conditions in
a foreign State designated for TPS to determine whether the conditions for the TPS
designation continue to be met and, if so, the length of an extension of the TPS
designation. See INA § 244(b)(3)(A); 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(3)(A)-(C). If the Secretary
determines that the foreign State no longer meets the conditions for the TPS designation,
he must terminate the designation. See INA § 244(b)(3)(B); 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(3)(B).
Although the Secretary must make his determination on extension or termination at least
60 days before the expiration of the TPS designation, publication of the required Federal
Register notice announcing his decision must be “on a timely basis.” See INA §
244(b)(3)(A). There is also an automatic, minimum six-month extension of a country’s
TPS designation if the Secretary does not make a decision under INA § 244(b)(3)(A); 8
U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(3)(A) that the foreign state no longer meets the conditions for
designation. See INA § 244(b)(3)(C); 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(3)(C).
After the Secretary designates a country for TPS, nationals of the country (and persons
without nationality who last habitually resided in the country) may apply for TPS, but
they must individually demonstrate their eligibility pursuant to the criteria established in
INA § 244(c) and the TPS regulations at 8 C.F.R. § 244.1 et seq. These criteria include,
but are not limited to, requirements that the applicant show continuous physical presence
in the United States since the effective date of the country designation and continuous
residence since such date as the Secretary determines; admissibility as an immigrant
(with limited exceptions); that the applicant is not ineligible under certain mandatory
criminal history, terrorism, and national security bars as specified in INA § 244(c)(2)(A-
B); and that the applicant is registering for TPS in accordance with regulatory procedures
in 8 C.F.R. §§ 244.2 – 244.9.
If granted TPS, the individual receives employment authorization and an Employment

Authorization Document, if requested, that is valid for the period that he or she holds
TPS. TPS is a temporary benefit that does not lead to lawful permanent residence or
confer any other immigration status. When a TPS country designation ends, TPS
beneficiaries maintain the same immigration status, if any, that they held prior to TPS
(unless that status has expired or been terminated) or any other status they may have
acquired while registered for TPS.
DHS000056
Refugee, Asylum, International Operations

RAIO Research Unit
20 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
TPS CONSIDERATIONS: HAITI (OCTOBER 2017)

NATURAL DISASTER
BACKGROUND & OVERVIEW
The January 12, 2010 earthquake that struck Haiti caused extensive damage to the country’s
physical infrastructure and public health, agricultural, housing, transportation, and educational
facilities. Haitian government estimates of the death toll caused by the earthquake have ranged
from 230,000 to as high as 316,000 people, though the accuracy of differing estimates is in
dispute.1 Estimates of people internally displaced range from approximately 1.5 million2 to 2.3
million3 at the peak of displacement.
Although some progress regarding reconstruction and recovery has been made in a variety of
scope of Haiti’s recovery has been uneven. 4 Many of the conditions prompting the original
internal fragility. Haiti has also experienced various setbacks that have impeded its recovery,
including a cholera epidemic and the impact of Hurricane Matthew—the latter of which struck
Haiti in October 2016 and “severely worsened the pre-existing humanitarian situation” in the
country.5 As of August 2017, Haiti “continues to be affected by a convergence of humanitarian
needs,” 6 including food insecurity, internal displacement, an influx of returnees from the
Dominican Republic, the persistence of cholera, and the lingering impact of various natural
disasters.7 Moreover, Haiti’s recovery has also been impacted by a series of other challenges
1
O’Conner, Maura R., Two Years Later, Haitian Earthquake Death Toll in Dispute, Columbia Journalism Review,
Jan. 12, 2012.
2
Status of Post-Earthquake Recovery and Development Efforts in Haiti (December 2014), U.S. Department of State,
Dec. 2014.
3
4
US Gives Haitian Immigrants 6-month TPS Extension, Voice of America News, May 22, 2017; Charles,
Jacqueline, Senate Democrats to Trump administration: Let Haitians stay, Miami Herald, Apr. 27, 2017.
5
(UNOCHA), Jul. 4. 2017.
6
Haiti - Humanitarian Situation Report - August 2017, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), p.1, Aug. 2017.
7
(UNOCHA), Jul. 4. 2017; Haiti Humanitarian Bulletin - Issue 64 | May 2017, United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), p.5, Jun. 11, 2017.
DHS000038

Page 2
related to housing, healthcare, economic growth, political instability, security, and environmental
concerns.
HOUSING SHORTAGE & INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT
Even before the 2010 earthquake, Haiti faced a substantial national housing deficit, estimated at
700,000 housing units.8 With an estimated $2.3 billion in damages—approximately 40% of the
total—housing was the sector most impacted by the earthquake.9 The Haitian government
estimated that 105,000 houses were destroyed and 188,383 houses collapsed or suffered
considerable damage.10 The International Organization for Migration (IOM) claimed that 1.5
million Haitians were internally displaced and moved into internally displaced person (IDP)
camps and other temporary sites following the disaster.11
While the number of IDP camps/sites and displaced individuals from the 2010 earthquake have
significantly declined, Haiti still faces considerable obstacles related to housing. According to
data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), from July 2010 to June 2017,
there has been a net decrease in displacement by 97 percent, and 98 percent of sites have
closed.12 However, as IOM reported in June 2017, “Camp closures, relocation and rental subsidy
programs began decreasing substantially in March 2015, a trend which continues today.”13
According to Amnesty International, many individuals who have left the IDP camps/sites have
reportedly “moved back to unsafe houses or started building or reconstructing their houses, in
most cases with no assistance or guidance, and often in informal settlements located in hazardous
areas.”14 Amnesty International has also claimed that over 60,000 IDPs have been forcibly
evicted from camps since 2010 by private landowners, often with the assistance or implicit
support of Haitian authorities.15
As of June 2017, around 37,867 IDPs (9,347 households) were still living in 27 camps.16
According to IOM, the number of organizations providing assistance to IDPs has declined in
8
2017).
9
2017).
10
11
Five Years After 2010 Earthquake, Thousands of Haitians Remain Displaced, International Organization for
Migration, Jan. 9, 2015, https://www.iom.int/news/five-years-after-2010-earthquake-thousands-haitians-remain-
displaced, (last visited Aug. 16, 2017).
12
13
14
Haiti: internal displacement, forced evictions, statelessness - the catalogue to violations continue, Amnesty
International, p.6, Mar. 31, 2016.
15
“15 Minutes to Leave”: Denial of the Right to Adequate Housing in Post-Quake Haiti, Amnesty International, p.9,
21, Jan. 2015; Haiti: internal displacement, forced evictions, statelessness - the catalogue to violations continue,
Amnesty International, p.6, Mar. 31, 2016.
16
DHS000039

Page 3
recent years, and “living conditions in the camps are precarious and access to basic services
remains a major challenge for the displaced population.”17 A vast majority of the
aforementioned individuals still living in camps/sites “are currently not targeted by partners for
durable solutions.”18
In October 2016, Hurricane Matthew impacted over 236,000 homes—“of which 44% were
destroyed and 42% severely damaged” 19—and displaced approximately 175,000 people in
Haiti.20 In areas most affected by the storm, approximately 90% of homes were destroyed.21
IOM reported in June 2017 that 3,597 individuals were living in 48 displacement sites due to the
impact of Hurricane Matthew and spring flooding in Grande’ Anse and Sud departments22.23
While post-earthquake IDP camps are closing, Haiti’s housing shortage remains far from
resolved. The 2010 earthquake exacerbated the country’s pre-existing shortage of adequate and
affordable housing.24 The Government of Haiti has estimated that the country will need as many
as 500,000 additional housing units over the next 10 years to make up for its shortage prior to the
earthquake, to replace housing lost as a result of damage from the disaster, and to accommodate
projected urban growth.25
CHOLERA EPIDEMIC & HEALTHCARE
Haiti’s longstanding public health challenges were exacerbated by the January 2010 earthquake
and an ongoing cholera epidemic that started in October 2010.26 According to the U.S. Agency
for International Development (USAID), “even before the 2010 earthquake, Haiti’s healthcare
system was not able to respond to the needs for basic healthcare services.”27 The 2010
earthquake significantly impacted Haiti’s health sector, destroying 50 health centers, the
Ministry of Health, and part of the country’s primary teaching hospital.28 Damages from both
the 2010 earthquake and Hurricane Matthew in October 2016—the latter of which affected 99
17
18
19
20
2017.
21
2017.
22
Haiti is divided administratively into 10 departments. See The World Factbook: Haiti, CIA, Jul. 27, 2017,
23
24
2017.
25
2017.
26
27
Haiti – Health Infrastructure Fact Sheet, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), p.1, Mar. 2017.
28
Haiti – Health Infrastructure Fact Sheet, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), p.1, Mar. 2017;
DHS000040

Page 4
health facilities29—“exacerbated an existing lack of adequate health infrastructure, such as health

care and storage facilities, as well as access to electricity, clean water and sanitation systems.”30
In June 2017, the United Nations Economic and Social Council reported that “Haiti has some of
the worst health indicators in the world, which continue to stymie economic development.”31
Approximately 40 percent of the population lacks access to fundamental health and nutrition
services.32 Maternal and infant mortality rates are respectively three and five times higher than
the regional averages,33 and “only 45 percent of all children between the ages of 12 months and
23 months are fully vaccinated.”34 Public spending in the health sector is low, and the country
has a limited number of health professionals and a deficit of health infrastructure.35
A cholera epidemic that began in October 2010—reportedly the largest such outbreak of cholera
in recent history—remains ongoing and continues to place additional strains on Haiti’s
beleaguered public health system.36 From October 2010 through June 2017, there have been an
estimated 813,000 cases of cholera in Haiti, and 9,676 people have been killed by the disease
(which was allegedly introduced by United Nations peacekeepers).37
While progress has been made in combatting cholera since the peak of the epidemic in 2011,38
cholera has become endemic in Haiti, “with seasonal peaks regularly triggering emergency
interventions.”39 In 2016, the number of suspected cholera cases increased, mainly due to a
spike in suspected cases in areas affected by Hurricane Matthew in the aftermath of the storm.40
29
Haiti: Hurricane Matthew Humanitarian Dashboard (as of Feb. 2017), United Nations Office for the Coordination
30
31
32
33
Better Spending, Better Care: A look at Haiti’s Health Financing, The World Bank,
http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/publication/better-spending-better-care-a-look-at-haitis-health-financing
34
35
36
Haiti - Health Fact Sheet, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), p.1, Mar. 2017; Lefevre,
Adrienne, The Consequences of Contaminated Water, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mar. 21, 2017,
https://blogs.cdc.gov/global/2017/03/21/the-consequences-of-contaminated-water/ (last visited Aug. 21, 2017).
37
Hurricane Matthew: '1.4 million need help in Haiti', Al Jazeera, Oct. 11, 2016; Partlow, Joshua, In the wake of
Matthew, Haitian towns struggle with cholera, Washington Post, Oct. 9, 2016; Zavis, Alexandra, U.N. admits a role
in deadly Haiti cholera epidemic, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 18, 2016; Yakupitiyage, Tharanga, UN “Profoundly
Sorry” for Haiti Cholera Outbreak, Inter Press Service, Dec. 2, 2016; Haiti: Cholera figures (as of 30 June 2017),
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), Jul. 24, 2017.
38
Fact Sheet: Cholera situation in Haiti, 1 January/15 April 2017, United Nations Country Team in Haiti, Apr. 27,
2017.
39
Haiti: Fighting the Spread of Mosquito-Borne Diseases, Doctors Without Borders/Médicins Sans Frontières
(MSF), Jul. 24, 2017, http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/haiti-fighting-spread-mosquito-borne-diseases
40
3, 2017.
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Page 5
While the number of suspected cases of cholera has declined since 2016,41 Haiti nevertheless
remains “extremely vulnerable” to the disease.42 According to the United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), cholera continues to impact Haiti due to a
lack of funding for the country’s National Plan for the Elimination of Cholera (PNEC), weak
water and sanitation infrastructure, the lack of access to quality medical care, and high
population density and mobility to urban areas.43
ECONOMY
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with poverty, vulnerability to natural
disasters, corruption, and low levels of education serving as significant obstacles to sustained
economic development.44 Haiti’s weak infrastructure and the difficulty of doing business limit
investment, and the country remains vulnerable to damage from natural disasters and dependent
on foreign aid or direct budget support for more than 20% of its annual budget.45 The 2010
earthquake caused $7.8 billion in damages and economic losses—“equivalent to more than 120
percent of Haiti’s 2009 gross domestic product (GDP)”46—and destroyed an estimated 90
percent of buildings in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, including hospitals, schools, physical
infrastructure, and transportation facilities.47 Although Haiti’s economy started to recover from
the earthquake—with economic growth at 5.5% in 2011— GDP growth has slowed to 1.2% in
2015 and 1.4% in 2016 as a result of political uncertainty, drought, declining foreign aid, and
currency depreciation.48 According to June 2017 data from the World Bank, Haiti’s GDP growth
is forecasted to further decline to 0.5% in 2017.49
While Haiti has made slight improvements in reducing poverty levels and increasing access to
education and sanitation since 2000, a 2014 World Bank report noted that the “wealth generated
in the country is largely inadequate to meet the needs of the people.”50 According to the World
Bank, “more than 6 million out of 10.4 million (59%) Haitians live under the national poverty
line of US$ 2.42 per day and over 2.5 million (24%) live under the national extreme poverty line
41
3, 2017.
42
Fact Sheet: Cholera situation in Haiti, 1 January/15 April 2017, UN Country Team in Haiti, Apr. 27, 2017.
43
Haiti: Cholera figures (as of 30 June 2017), United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(UNOCHA), Jul. 24, 2017.
44
45
46
47
48
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ha.html, (last visited Aug. 17, 2017); Global
Economic Prospects: A Fragile Recovery, The World Bank Group, p.90, Jun. 2017.
49
Global Economic Prospects: A Fragile Recovery, The World Bank Group, p.90, Jun. 2017.
50
Poverty and Inclusion in Haiti: Social gains at timid pace, The World Bank Group, p.1-2, 2014.
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Page 6
of US$1.23 per day.”51 An additional one million people are at risk of falling into poverty
following an external shock, such as a natural disaster.52 An estimated 40% of Haitians are
unemployed.53
According to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, Haiti “is highly dependent on
remittances from its diaspora.”54 Remittances—estimated at over $2 billion per year in 2015,
including more than $1.3 billion from Haitians living in the United States55—are Haiti’s
“primary source of foreign exchange, equivalent to more than a quarter of GDP, and nearly
double the combined value of Haitian exports and foreign direct investment.”56 Moreover,
remittances have also “helped to support education, health and the subsistence requirements” of
Haiti’s population.57
GOVERNANCE & POLITICAL INSTABILITY
Per IHS Jane’s, with its history of political instability, economic struggles, political violence, and
pervasive human rights abuses, Haiti “has long been seen as a model of poor and corrupt
governance.”58 Even before the earthquake, the Haitian government “could not or would not
deliver core functions to the majority of its people.”59 The January 2010 earthquake had an
immediate and significant impact on governance and the rule of law in Haiti, killing an estimated
18 percent of the country’s civil service and destroying key government infrastructure, including
the National Palace, the Parliament, 28 of 29 government ministry buildings, the Haitian
National Police’s headquarters, and various judicial facilities (including courts and correctional
facilities).60
On April 19, 2017, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse announced a project to rebuild the National
Palace, which was significantly damaged in the 2010 earthquake and subsequently demolished.61
51
The World Bank in Haiti: Overview, The World Bank, Jul. 27, 2017,
http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/overview#1 (last visited Aug. 18, 2017).
52
Poverty and Inclusion in Haiti: Social gains at timid pace, The World Bank Group, p.4, 2014.
53
Haiti - Economic Growth & Agricultural Development Fact Sheet, U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID), Mar. 2017.
54
55
Remittance Flows Worldwide in 2015, Pew Research Center, Aug. 31, 2016,
http://www.pewglobal.org/interactives/remittance-map/ (last visited Aug. 17, 2017).
56
57
58
59
(USAID), p.1, Mar. 2016.
60
Haiti: Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Jul.24,
2017, https://www.usaid.gov/where-we-work/latin-american-and-caribbean/haiti/democracy-human-rights-and-
governance (last visited Aug. 22, 2017).
61
Haiti to rebuild National Palace toppled in 2010 quake, AFP, Apr. 20, 2017; McFadden, David, Haiti to rebuild
National Palace smashed in 2010 earthquake, Associated Press, Apr. 19, 2017.
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Moïse stated that he would like for construction to start before the end of 2017.62 President Moïse
also pledged that the Parliament and the Palace of Justice would be rebuilt during his five-year
term in office.63 In August 2017, IHS Jane’s reported that, among the public buildings destroyed
by the earthquake, only the Supreme Court of Justice had been reconstructed and was operational
in 2017.64 In October 2017, the Haitian government launched an international architecture
competition for proposals to rebuild the National Palace.65
In June 2016, the October 2015 presidential election results were annulled, and new elections
were scheduled for October 2016—yet were subsequently postponed due to the impact of
Hurricane Matthew.66 On November 20, 2016, Jovenel Moïse, a banana plantation owner, was
elected president with enough votes to avoid a run-off.67 Moïse was officially declared the
winner of Haiti’s presidential election on January 4, 2017,68 and was sworn in on February 7.69
On January 29, 2017, Haiti held elections for eight senators and one seat in the lower chamber of
congress.70 Nationwide municipal elections were also held on this date for the first time since
December 5, 2006.71
While Haiti successfully completed its electoral process in February 2017 after two years of
contested results and political crises, its new government faces various challenges to promote
recovery and reconstruction.72 According to USAID, although Haiti possesses “the formal
structures of a democracy, many of these have yet to become fully functional.”73 Haiti’s state
institutions lack sufficient resources, and “provide limited services to only a small percentage of
the population.”74 In late June 2017, the United Nations Economic and Social Council reported
that, while Haiti’s new government has expressed a desire to improve the country’s political and
socioeconomic situation, “it is also clear that the Government has limited capacity to ensure a
62
Haiti to rebuild National Palace toppled in 2010 quake, AFP, Apr. 20, 2017.
63
McFadden, David, Haiti to rebuild National Palace smashed in 2010 earthquake, Associated Press, Apr. 19, 2017.
64
65
Fulcher, Merlin, Competition: National Palace, Haiti, The Architects’ Journal, Oct. 10, 2017,
https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/competitions/competition-national-palace-haiti/10024240.article (last visited
Oct. 12, 2017); Haiti - FLASH : Architecture Competition for the Reconstruction of the National Palace, Haiti Libre,
Oct. 4, 2017.
66
Domonoske, Camila, 14 Months After Elections Began, Haiti Finally Has A President-Elect, NPR, Jan. 4, 2017.
67
Charles, Jacqueline, Banana farmer wins Haiti presidency, according to preliminary results, Miami Herald, Nov.
28, 2016.
68
Haiti: Jovenel Moise confirmed winner of presidential election, BBC News, Jan. 4, 2017.
69
Businessman Jovenel Moise Sworn In as Haiti's President, Voice of America News, Feb. 7, 2017.
70
Low turnout in Haiti's local elections, AFP, Jan. 29, 2017.
71
McFadden, David, Haiti holds final round of election cycle started in 2015, Associated Press, Jan. 29, 2017;
Charles, Jacqueline, Haiti election cycle nears end with Sunday vote and more than 5,000 seats up for grabs, Miami
Herald, Jan. 27, 2017.
72
73
(USAID), p.1, Mar. 2017.
74
(USAID), p.1, Mar. 2017.
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public administration system that can effectively guarantee the rule of law and a functioning
justice system, promote the fight against corruption and effectively protect human rights.”75
In early October 2017, the Miami Herald reported that, “in recent weeks, Haiti has been engulfed
in protests over tax hikes, with massive and sometimes violent street demonstrations.”76 Anti-
government protests erupted in mid-September after the Haitian parliament approved the
government budget, which opponents have argued contains tax increases that would hurt
impoverished families. 77 Multiple demonstrations have occurred since mid-September, and the
protests have spread from Port-au-Prince to other areas of the country.78 Some of the protests
have become violent, with demonstrators reportedly throwing rocks, damaging property,
blocking traffic, and burning cars and tires, and the Haitian police responding to the unrest by
firing tear gas and water at protesters.79 At least two people have been killed and others have
been injured during the demonstrations.80
SECURITY
By creating new security vulnerabilities and stimulating an increase in crime, the 2010
earthquake had a deleterious impact on public security in Haiti.81 The escape of thousands of
prisoners and the diffusion of gangs throughout Port-au-Prince in the aftermath of the earthquake
overwhelmed Haiti’s historically weak justice system and police.82 An overall climate of
insecurity in IDP camps left many IDPs vulnerable to violence and crime, including gender-
based violence, theft, and domestic violence.83 Violence against women reportedly increased in
the aftermath of the earthquake.84
75
Report of the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Haiti, United Nations Economic and Social Council, p.4-5, Jun. 29,
2017.
76
Charles, Jacqueline, Haiti requests 18-month TPS extension from Trump administration, The Miami Herald, Oct.
9, 2017.
77
78
79
80
81
p.1-2, Sep. 28, 2010.
82
p.1-2, Sep. 28, 2010.
83
p.1-2, Sep. 28, 2010.
84
Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Dec. 15, 2016 .
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Crime rates in Haiti are high, and the general security situation is “unpredictable.”85 The U.S.
Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security has reported that homicide, armed
robberies, and crimes against persons (including gender-based violence) are major concerns.86
Demonstrations, roadblocks, and political rallies regularly occur, and have at times led to violent
incidents.87 Violence against women is reportedly widespread, and has been characterized as a
chronic or systemic problem.88 Impunity levels are high, and the capacity of Haiti’s police force
is “relatively low.”89 In general, Haitians “lack basic policing services,” and criminals are
reportedly able to operate without fear of the police.90
According to the U.S. Department of State, “rates of kidnapping, murder, and rape rose in
2016.”91 The Government of the United Kingdom has reported that “crime levels have
continued to increase in 2017.”92 In July 2017, the United Nations Secretary General reported
that, since his previous report in March 2017, “growing tensions linked to socioeconomic
grievances notwithstanding, key indicators, including crime and civil protests, remained within
historically established statistical parameters.”93
MINUSTAH
In 2004, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) was established
following a rebellion that led to the removal of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and subsequent
violence, including armed clashes, killings, and kidnappings.94 In the aftermath of the violence
and the establishment of MINUSTAH, “uniformed U.N. troops provided the only real security” in
Haiti for years.95 However, the Associated Press reported in March 2017 that, “these days, Haiti’s
police do most of the heavy lifting and the mood has changed.”96
85
visited Aug. 22, 2017); Haiti – Safety and Security, GOV.UK, https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-
advice/haiti/safety-and-security (last visited Aug. 22, 2017).
86
87
visited Aug. 22, 2017)
88
Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Dec. 15, 2016.
89
90
91
Haiti Travel Warning, U.S. Department of State, May 22, 2017,
https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/alertswarnings/haiti-travel-warning.html (last visited Aug. 22, 2017).
92
Haiti – Safety and Security, GOV.UK, https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/haiti/safety-and-security (last
visited Aug. 22, 2017).
93
94
95
96
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MINUSTAH’s tenure in Haiti has been controversial.97 The Los Angeles Times has described the
U.N. military presence in Haiti as “never really welcome,”98 while some Haitians view the U.N.
peacekeeping mission as “an occupying force,” 99 or as an incursion into Haiti’s sovereignty.100
In March 2017, the Associated Press characterized the peacekeepers’ tenure as “rocky,” noting
that they:
have earned praise for boosting security, paving the way to elections and providing
crucial support after disasters, particularly the devastating 2010 earthquake. But
some troops have also been accused of excessive force, rape and abandoning babies
they fathered.101
In addition, U.N. troops from Nepal are “widely blamed” for introducing cholera to the
country,102 with the source of cholera reportedly traced by scientists to a U.N. base.103 Moreover,
some U.N. troops have reportedly been “implicated in a sexual abuse scandal, including a sex ring
that exploited Haitian children.”104
On April 13, 2017, the United Nations Security Council decided that MINUSTAH “would
gradually draw down its military component during the next six months, finally withdrawing
from Haiti by 15 October 2017.”105 MINUSTAH will be replaced by the United Nations
Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH), which will seek to “help the Haitian
Government strengthen rule-of-law institutions, further develop and support the Haitian National
Police and engage in human rights monitoring, reporting and analysis.”106 MINUJUSTH will
comprise up to seven Formed Police Units (FPU) consisting of 980 personnel, and 295
Individual Police Officers for an initial six month period from October 16, 2017 to April 15,
2018.107 In July 2017, the United Nations Secretary General reported that “the ongoing
97
Los Angeles Times, Apr. 17, 2017; Lederer, Edith, The U.N. Just Unanimously Voted to End Its Peacekeeping
Mission in Haiti, Associated Press, Apr. 13, 2017.
98
99
100
101
102
Charles, Jacqueline, A Haiti without U.N. peacekeepers? After almost 13 years, it may happen., Miami Herald,
Feb. 14, 2017.
103
104
105
106
In visit to Haiti, Security Council delegation to reaffirm support for country's stability and development, UN
News Service, Jun. 23, 2017.
107
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withdrawal of the MINUSTAH military and police components…has not affected the overall
security situation.”108
FOOD SECURITY
Damage from the 2010 earthquake exacerbated Haiti’s historic food security challenges. The
earthquake displaced over 600,000 people from urban to rural areas and caused significant
damage to physical infrastructure; these factors contributed to a sharp decline in income and food
availability, as well as an increase in the price of food in the aftermath of the earthquake.109
While the international community provided emergency food assistance and support for the
agricultural sector to help avert a post-earthquake food crisis, food insecurity has remained a
significant challenge for Haiti.110 Haiti depends on imports to meet more than 50 percent of its
food needs,111 and is extremely vulnerable to fluctuations in global food prices.112 Chronic
malnutrition impacts approximately half of Haiti’s population.113
In recent years, food and nutritional security in Haiti have gradually deteriorated due to the
impact of Tropical Storm Isaac and Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and three consecutive years of
severe drought (exacerbated by El Niño).114 Hurricane Matthew also exacerbated food insecurity
in Haiti.115 The impact of the hurricane caused an estimated $580 million in damages to the
country’s agricultural sector, and extensive damage to “crops, livestock and fisheries as well as
to infrastructure such as irrigation – with the most affected areas having up to 100 percent crop
damage or destruction.”116 Approximately “428,000 farmers were decapitalized” and food
108
109
Special Report: FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission to Haiti, Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations & The World Food Programme, Sep. 21, 2010,
http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/ak353e/ak353e00.htm, (last visited Aug. 21, 2017).
110
Haiti: six months on, agriculture needs more support, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,
Jul. 15, 2010, http://www.fao.org/emergencies/fao-in-action/stories/stories-detail/en/c/147984/, (last visited Aug. 21,
2017); Haiti – Agriculture and Food Security Fact Sheet, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), p.1,
Mar. 2017.
111
Mar. 2017.
112
Food Assistance Fact Sheet – Haiti, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Aug. 7, 2017.
113
2017.
114
ECHO Factsheet – Haiti – June 2016, European Commission's Directorate-General for European Civil
Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, Jun. 10, 2016; Food Assistance Fact Sheet – Haiti, U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID), Aug. 7, 2017; ECHO Factsheet – Haiti – May 2017, European Commission's
Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, May 2017,
http://ec.europa.eu/echo/files/aid/countries/factsheets/haiti_en.pdf (last visited Aug. 21, 2017)
115
Mar. 2017.
116
Damages to agricultural sector in storm-hit Haiti estimated at $580 million – UN agency, UN News Centre, Nov.
23, 2016.
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production infrastructure was significantly impacted by the storm.117 In August 2017, USAID
reported that, “more than six months later, the storm's impact continues to drive elevated levels
of food insecurity in the worst-affected communities.”118 As of May 2017, approximately 5.82
million people were facing food insecurity in Haiti,119 including 2.35 million people who “were
severely food-insecure and in need of immediate assistance.”120
NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS
Due to its geographic location, weak infrastructure, and limited government resources, Haiti is
particularly susceptible to natural disasters.121 Per the World Bank, Haiti has been impacted by
natural disasters “almost every year since 1971, losing on average two percent of GDP every
year due to hydrometeorological events.”122 An estimated 98 percent of the Haitian population is
exposed to two or more types of natural disasters.123 As a result of its exposure to natural
hazards and the vulnerabilities of its population, Haiti “consistently ranks among the most
vulnerable countries in the world to disasters and climate change.”124 According to the 2017
Global Climate Risk Index, Haiti ranked as the third most affected country in the world by
extreme weather events from 1996 to 2015; during this time, Haiti averaged $222 million in
damages per year—equivalent to 1.49% of GDP on average.125
Located along the “hurricane belt,”126 Haiti is regularly impacted by tropical storms and
floods.127 Haiti suffered severe flooding in 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007.128 During the 2008
hurricane season, Haiti was impacted by four storms “which killed more than 800 people and
devastated nearly three-quarters of its agricultural land.”129 In the fall of 2012, Hurricane Sandy
117
118
Food Assistance Fact Sheet – Haiti, U.S.Agency for International Development (USAID), Aug. 7, 2017.
119
120
121
122
123
2017.
124
Thomas, Alice, Two Steps Back: Haiti Still Reeling from Hurricane Matthew, Refugees International, p.4-5,
April 2017.
125
Kreft, Sönke, Eckstein, David and Melchior, Inga, Global Climate Risk Index 2017, Germanwatch, p. 23, Nov.
2016.
126
2017.
127
128
129
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affected 1.8 million Haitians; flooded, damaged, or destroyed 18,000 homes; damaged key
infrastructure, including roads, hospitals, and schools; and killed 60 people.130
More recently, Haiti has been “grappling with a heavy rainy season” in 2017.131 The rainy
season, which began in April, has resulted in:
floods and landslides, damage to homes and destruction of harvests, especially in

the departments of South, Grand’Anse and Nippes, which were the most affected
departments by Hurricane Matthew. Erosion of roads have impacted access to
several communes, especially in the South department.132
By late May, at least seven people had been killed and 15,000 households were in need of
immediate humanitarian assistance.133 The rainy season coincides with hurricane season in
Haiti, which typically lasts from June 1 to November 30.134 In June 2017, the United Nations
Economic and Social Council reported that the Haitian government “has indicated that it does
not have the capacity in terms of equipment and personnel to mitigate any disaster that may
result” from the current hurricane season.135
On September 7, 2017, Hurricane Irma—a Category 5 hurricane—impacted northern Haiti (one

of the poorest regions of the country),136 with heavy rains, wind, and flooding causing
“significant damages in the Nord-Est, Nord-Ouest, Nord, Artibonite and Centre departments.”137
The impact of Hurricane Irma led to the evacuation of over 12,500 people, left one person dead
and another missing, and injured more than a dozen others.138 In addition, 4,903 homes were
flooded, 2,646 were damaged, and 466 were destroyed.139 Hurricane Irma also caused extensive
130
UN relief agency estimates 1.8 million Haitians have been affected by Hurricane Sandy, United Nations Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Nov. 2, 2012.
131
132
2017.
133
Haiti Humanitarian Bulletin - Issue 65 | June-July 2017, United Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), p.1, Aug. 17, 2017; Five dead, 19 missing after Haiti rains, flooding – officials,
Reuters, May 19, 2017.
134
2017.
135
2017.
136
Charles, Jacqueline, Irma mostly spared Haiti. But for struggling farmers, the damages are devastating, The
Miami Herald, Sep. 9, 2017.
137
138
139
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Page 14
damage to crops and livestock in affected areas,140 with an estimated 18,000 families in northern
Haiti losing their food crops due to the impact of the storm.141
Located along several major fault lines, Haiti has also been impacted by powerful earthquakes.142
In 2016, Haiti suffered from its third consecutive year of drought, which was exacerbated by El
Niño.143 Extensive deforestation exposes Haiti to and exacerbates flooding, mudslides, and soil
erosion.144
HURRICANE MATTHEW
The strongest hurricane to strike the country in more than 50 years and the third strongest ever
recorded in Haiti, Hurricane Matthew made landfall in southwestern Haiti as a Category 4
hurricane on October 4, 2016.145 With 145-mile-an-hour winds and torrential rains,146 Hurricane
Matthew “violently struck south-western Haiti…causing widespread damage, flooding and
displacement.”147 Heavy flooding occurred in the most affected departments, including
Grand’Anse, South, Nippes and South East departments.148 Per UNOCHA, the impact of the
hurricane occurred at a time when Haiti was “already facing an increase in the number of cholera
cases and severe food insecurity and malnutrition.”149
According to UNOCHA, Hurricane Matthew caused the greatest humanitarian crisis in Haiti
since the 2010 earthquake.150 Hurricane Matthew affected 2.1 million people in Haiti; of this
amount, 1.4 million were estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance in the aftermath of
140
After the Hurricane – an overview of the damage Irma and Maria left behind, International Federation of Red
Cross And Red Crescent Societies, Sep. 22, 2017.
141
Moloney, Anastasia, Floods leave Haitian farmers struggling in Irma's wake: U.N., Thomson Reuters
Foundation, Sep. 13, 2017.
142
Jones, Sam, Why is Haiti vulnerable to natural hazards and disasters?, The Guardian, Oct. 4, 2016; Thomas,
Alice, Two Steps Back: Haiti Still Reeling from Hurricane Matthew, Refugees International, p.4, April 2017.
143
2017; WFP Haiti - Country Brief, World Food Programme, p.2, May 2017.
144
2017; Jones, Sam, Why is Haiti vulnerable to natural hazards and disasters?, The Guardian, Oct. 4, 2016.
145
Hurricane Matthew: '1.4 million need help in Haiti', Al Jazeera, Oct. 11, 2016; Haiti: Hurricane Matthew
Emergency Appeal n° MDRHT012, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, p.1, Oct. 6,
2016; Thomas, Alice, Two Steps Back: Haiti Still Reeling from Hurricane Matthew, Refugees International, p.4,
April 2017;
146
Beaubien, Jason, How Many Houses Did Hurricane Leave Standing In Port Salut, Haiti?, NPR Morning Edition,
Oct. 11, 2016; Guyler Delva, Joseph, Hurricane Matthew toll in Haiti rises to 1,000, dead buried in mass graves,
Reuters, Oct. 10, 2016.
147
148
149
Affairs (UNOCHA), p.4, Oct. 10, 2016.
150
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the storm.151 An estimated 175,000 people were displaced,152 and 546 people were killed.153
Hurricane Matthew also caused “widespread damage to homes, roads, public infrastructure,
hospitals, and schools.”154 Damages from Hurricane Matthew were estimated at nearly $2.8
billion—equivalent to 1/3 of Haiti’s gross domestic product155—and were particularly severe in
Haiti’s housing and food security sectors.156
In the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, the international humanitarian community coordinated

with the Government of Haiti to provide emergency humanitarian assistance to those affected by
the storm.157 Humanitarian assistance was provided in a variety of fields, including emergency
shelter, health, food security, protection, etc.158 In early March 2017, UNOCHA reported that
over 1 million people had been reached with humanitarian assistance in the most affected regions
of Grand’Anse, Sud and Nippes departments.159 UNOCHA also noted that the emergency
response was ending at this time, with the focus shifting to early recovery.160
According to a United Nations official, as of mid-April 2017, shelter and food remained scarce
in Haiti’s southern peninsula.161 In March 2017, an international non-governmental organization
reported that at least 13 people in Grand’Anse department had died due to hurricane related food
shortages in the region, and some Haitians were reportedly living in caves and eating poisonous
plants to survive.162 UNOCHA reported in May 2017 that “affected people continue to live in
precarious conditions, particularly in hard-to-reach areas.”163
151
152
2017.
153
154
2017.
155
Charles, Jacqueline, Senate Democrats to Trump administration: Let Haitians stay, Miami Herald, Apr. 27, 2017;
Charles, Jacqueline, Six months after Hurricane Matthew, food, shelter still scarce in Haiti, Miami Herald, Apr. 12,
2017.
156
157
158
159
160
161
Charles, Jacqueline, Six months after Hurricane Matthew, food, shelter still scarce in Haiti, Miami Herald, Apr.
12, 2017.
162
Charles, Jacqueline, Desperate Haitians living in caves, eating toxic plants in post-hurricane Haiti, Miami Herald,
Mar. 24, 2017.
163
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The Haitian government and the international community continued to support Haiti’s efforts to
recover from Hurricane Matthew during the summer of 2017. On June 30, 2017, President
Jovenel Moïse declared a state of emergency in areas hit by the storm.164 The World Bank
announced grants of $100 million in June 2017 and an additional $100 million in July 2017 to
support Haiti’s recovery from the impact of Hurricane Matthew.165 In addition, the Miami
Herald reported in July 2017 that the Inter-American Development Bank would reroute $85
million in funding to support reconstruction efforts in southern Haiti.166
Nevertheless, in June 2017, the World Bank reported that reconstruction needs from Hurricane
Matthew “were assessed at US$2.2 billion or 25 percent of GDP.”167 In July 2017, the Miami
Herald reported that residents of the areas most impacted by Hurricane Matthew in southern
Haiti felt abandoned by international donors and the Haitian government.168 The Inter-
American Development Bank’s representative for Haiti told the Miami Herald in July 2017 that,
even with the additional funding from its organization for areas impacted by Hurricane Matthew:
“The situation is so dire that even if we fully disbursed the $85 million that we have
committed to the South after the hurricane, there are still a lot of people in need, a
lot of villages that were badly affected by the hurricane and need further
investment,” he said. “We will need lots more resources.”169
In October 2017, Agence France-Presse reported that—one year after Hurricane Matthew—Haiti
was still suffering from the consequences of the storm, and had yet to change “the way the
country prepares for natural disasters.”170
HAITIAN RETURNEES FROM THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
A crackdown on undocumented migrants in the Dominican Republic has contributed to an influx

of returnees to Haiti in recent years.171 From July 2015 through July 2017, IOM recorded that
164
2017.
165
2017; World Bank Approves Additional US$80 Million for Haiti’s Hurricane Recovery, The World Bank, Jun. 14,
2017; Haiti - Post-Matthew : Additional $80M grants from the World Bank, Haiti Libre, Jun. 15, 2017.
166
2017.
167
168
2017.
169
2017.
170
A year after Hurricane Matthew, Haiti more vulnerable than ever, Agence France-Presse (AFP), Oct. 4, 2017.
171
Azam, Ahmed, Forced to Flee Dominican Republic for Haiti, Migrants Land in Limbo, The New York Times,
Dec. 12, 2015; Partlow, Joshua, A Haitian border town struggles with new rules in the Dominican Republic, The
Washington Post, Jun. 24, 2015; McFadden, David, An aid agency is relocating several thousand people who had
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215,121 Haitian migrants spontaneously returned or were deported to Haiti.172 In June 2017,
IOM reported that the “total number of returnees has averaged between 6000 and 8000
individuals on a monthly basis” since August 2016.173 However, the total number of returnees
may actually be higher, as IOM stated that it had only been able to monitor half of border
crossings between the two countries since September 2016 due to budget constraints.174
Deportations from the Dominican Republic have drastically increased since April 2017; July
2017 had the highest number of official deportations since October 2015.175
In July 2017, the United Nations Secretary-General reported that returnees from the Dominican
Republic:
continue to find themselves in a situation of vulnerability owing to the

insufficient reception capacity of the Haitian authorities and a lack of
reintegration opportunities. This group will likely continue to need assistance in
the foreseeable future, including with regard to the determination of their legal
status.176
Similarly, in August 2017, the Miami Herald commented on the Haitian government’s “inability
to absorb the influx” of returnees from the Dominican Republic, also noting that “their arrival,
mostly ignored by Haitian authorities, has burdened humanitarian organizations that have
struggled to help amid deep budget cuts and indifference.”177 Many migrants reportedly “arrive
in precarious conditions,”178 while some returnees reportedly live in “makeshift camps” along
the border similar to those inhabited by IDPs from the 2010 earthquake.179
fled to Haiti from the Dominican Republic and set up informal settlements along the Haitian side of the border,
Associated Press, Mar. 30, 2016; Maloney, Anastasia, U.N. urges Dominican Republic to prevent deportations of
Haitians, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Jul. 29, 2015.
172
Organization for Migration, Jun. 27, 2017; IOM Haiti border monitoring sitrep: Tracking returnees from the
Dominican Republic, International Organization for Migration, International Organization for Migration, Aug. 3,
2017.
173
174
for Migration, International Organization for Migration, Jun. 29, 2017.
175
for Migration, International Organization for Migration, Aug. 3, 2017; Haiti Humanitarian Bulletin - Issue 65 | June-
July 2017, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), p.1-2, Aug. 17, 2017.
176
177
Charles, Jacqueline, The countdown for Haitians with TPS has started. And that has many in Haiti worried.,
Miami Herald, Aug. 4, 2017.
178
Organization for Migration, Jun. 27, 2017.
179
Following political crisis Haiti must urgently advance human rights agenda, Amnesty International, Mar. 17,
2017.
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Page 18
SUMMARY
Haiti’s recovery has been hindered by subsequent natural disasters and various political, social,
health, security, and economic conditions which have negatively impacted the country in recent
years. Haiti remains vulnerable to external shocks, and its internal fragility has left it unable to
adequately respond to a wide range of persistent humanitarian needs. As UNOCHA and the
United Nations Country Team in Haiti reported in January 2017:
With more than 98% of Haitians exposed to two or more types of disasters, the
impact of recurring natural disasters is particularly severe, especially considering
the already pre-existing protection, socio-economic and environmental
vulnerabilities and disparities. Most Haitians remain vulnerable to natural hazards
and disasters, such as floods, landslides, droughts, earthquakes and hurricanes.
With more than a half of its total population living in extreme poverty, Hurricane
Matthew has once more demonstrated Haiti's weakened ability to cope, recover and
adapt to shocks from natural disasters. Meanwhile, as a result of electoral-related
tensions, politically motivated demonstrations and insecurity have affected the
humanitarian operating environment since mid- 2015 against the backdrop of a
decreasing humanitarian presence in the field due to the lack of humanitarian
funding.180
Due to the conditions outlined in this report, Haiti’s recovery from the 2010 earthquake could be
characterized as falling into what one non-governmental organization recently described as “the
country’s tragic pattern of ‘one step forward, two steps back.’”181
180
Haiti: Humanitarian Response Plan January 2017 - December 2018, United Nations Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA)/United Nations Country Team in Haiti, p.6, Jan. 2017.
181
2017.
DHS000055
Release in part B5
B5
DHS000057
DHS000058
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED Release in part B5
DEPARTMENT OF STATE RECOMMENDATION REGARDING

TEMPORARY PROTECTED STATUS (TPS) FOR HAITI - 2017
I. Statutory Basis for Designation
Have the conditions under which the foreign state was designated for temporary protected
status ceased to exist?
B5
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED

DHS000059
-2-
r B5
(U) NIA.

DHS000060

-3-
B5

DHS000061

-4-
B5
III. Recommendation

DHS000062
-5-
B5

DHS000063

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Case 1:18-cv-01599-WFK-ST Document 21 Filed 05/31/18 Page 1 of 45 PageID #: 133

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

PATRICK SAGET, SABINA BADIO FLORIAL,

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States

COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF

of America; the Department of Homeland Security; Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland

represents a misunderstanding and misapplication of the laws relevant to Temporary Protected

3. At that time, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

designation provided employment authorization and protection from deportation to Haitians

protect its people.

consideration of the totality of “extraordinary” conditions affecting Haiti under 8 U.S.C.

violence; and environmental risks. These conditions continue to this day.

and terminated TPS for Haiti.

6. This decision—a stunning reversal of course—affects the lives of over 50,000

writer be forced to return to Haiti.

7. DHS’s decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation violates the Fifth

and-comment rulemaking; and it violates the Regulatory Flexibility Act.

Orange and Newark in New Jersey.

members of an affiliated organization—Club des Amis de Haïti Liberté—to write, photograph,

him should he be forced to return to Haiti.

South Florida’s Haitian immigrant community.

and Literacy; Community Economic Development; Family Intervention and Empowerment;

lawfully in this country.

mental health program for treatment of anxiety and situational depression.

United States, including the one in Miami.

Plaintiffs are deported.

his personal and medical needs in Haiti.

the Women’s Choir.

also has a part-time job as a martial arts instructor.

remittances to her surviving family in Haiti.

from and depriving him of his mother.

He sends remittances to support several people in Haiti.

coordinated by FANM and Senator Bill Nelson’s office.

become involved with FANM on the family’s behalf.

attends meetings at FANM, which he strongly supports and values.

sued in his official capacity.

28. Defendant Department of Homeland Security is an agency of the United States

termination of its designation of Haiti as a TPS country.

29. Defendant Kirstjen Nielsen is the Secretary of the Department of Homeland

Security. She is sued in her official capacity.

30. Defendant Elaine C. Duke is the Deputy Secretary of the Department of

immigrants. She is sued in her official capacity.

JURISDICTION AND VENUE

business is in the district. 28 U.S.C. § 1391(e)(1).

Background on Temporary Protected Status

United States because of certain exigent circumstances.

8 U.S.C. § 1254a(c)(1)(A); 8 C.F.R. § 244.2.

committed a crime described in 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(2)(A), or is otherwise a danger to the security

of the United States. Id.

in ¶ 36 supra), the period of designation is automatically extended for an additional period of at

Haiti’s TPS Designation under the Previous Administration

46. Because of the combination of these “extraordinary conditions,” DHS designated

Haiti for TPS. Id.

caused by the earthquake.3

Fed. Reg. 29,000 (May 19, 2011).

earthquake, including 112,656 hospitalizations and 3,297 deaths. Id. at 29,001.

22, 2013. Id. at 29,000.

8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(1)(C) (“extraordinary” conditions), as opposed to 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(1)(A)

or (B), which are tied to a specific precipitating event.

Donald Trump’s Racial and National Origin Animus

They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”4

them. They don’t want to take care of them.”5

59. In October 2016, then-candidate Trump responded to a presidential debate