Georgia's Haitian migrants worried for the future as Trump prepares to end TPS status

The Trump administration plans to end Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for many Haitian immigrants on Tuesday.

The program allows foreign nationals to stay in the United States lawfully — working and avoiding deportation — while their home country is facing armed conflict, disasters, or extraordinary conditions. The decision could have a profound impact on the nearly 400,000 Haitians in the United States.

Georgia's Haitian population ranks fifth in the country. With approximately 15,000 Haitians working in Atlanta, many of them in healthcare with Temporary Protected Status, the mood, according to immigration attorney Wide Thomas, is "fear."

"Right now, they don't even know what to do. They don't know what the future looks like because their employers — now they've started asking them for proof of lawful status in order for the employers to keep them on the jobs," Thomas said.

Thomas was in the courtroom at the last federal hearing to determine the fate of TPS, which a judge extended through Tuesday.

"It's very painful for some people to think back — how many things they've lost, what they've lost, parts of themselves that they've also lost in Haiti by the people — bandits, gang members," she said.

According to Thomas, with conditions deteriorating in Haiti, what Haitians might face if deported could be "traumatic."

"The people in Haiti, currently, they're living out of fear. They don't leave their houses. It's hard for them to function. There are no hospitals, no infrastructure whatsoever," she said.

Here in the U.S., some 100,000 Haitian immigrants work in the healthcare sector as home healthcare nurses, certified nursing assistants in hospitals, and in elder care in nursing homes. The impact of mass deportations could be dire.

"If you terminate or lay those people off, who's going to be in the nursing home to take care of these people?" Atlanta immigration attorney Judith Delus Montgomery said. Her mother was a Haitian home healthcare nurse. 

"The nurses can't do the work by themselves. The LPNs can't do the nursing work by themselves. The CNAs are who really do the work," she said.

Whether by an injunction or deportation, any ruling from the district court is expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices will likely consider conditions on the Caribbean island.

"You cannot terminate this specific program based on race. You can't do that," Montgomery said. "There are specific thresholds that must be followed in order for TPS to be terminated for any country. And one of them is there has to be stability in that country. There is no stability in Haiti."

With more than 100,000 Haitian immigrants employed in the healthcare sector, some people in the community expect to see significant lobbying efforts from healthcare providers, especially in elder care and nursing, trying to persuade the administration to preserve TPS.