Press Release: 11/13/2025

AG Campbell Defends Temporary Protected Status For Haitian And Venezuelan Immigrants

 

Files Amicus Brief Challenging Unlawful Termination of Legal Status for Hundreds of Thousands of Immigrants

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

11/13/2025

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Allie Zuliani, Deputy Press Secretary

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BOSTON — Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell joined a coalition of 15 other attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, defending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants, including many who have lived, worked, and raised their families in the United States for years. In the brief, the coalition urges the appeals court to uphold a lower court’s ruling that found unlawful the federal administration’s attempt to strip TPS protections, including lawful immigration status, for Haitians and Venezuelans. 

Despite ongoing humanitarian crises in both Haiti and Venezuela and warnings from the U.S. State Department concerning the two countries’ safety, the Trump Administration attempted to end early, and then terminate, TPS protections for Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants—even after the Biden Administration recognized the crises occurring in Haiti and Venezuela and extended protections for those already in the United States. If allowed to take effect, this termination of legal status would insight chaos and confusion for hundreds of thousands of people across the country – many of whom fled violence, oppression, and poverty to build a life in the United States. Without TPS, Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants will lose their work authorization and could face deportation, endangering themselves and their families.  

AG Campbell and the coalition argue that the United States District Court for the Northern District of California correctly found that the Administration’s actions were arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to the law. Revoking TPS would cause immense economic, public health and public safety disruptions in communities across the country. 

In 2022, approximately 54,000 U.S. citizen children and 80,000 U.S. citizen adults lived with a Venezuelan TPS holder, and about 87,000 U.S. citizen children and 116,000 U.S. citizen adults lived with a Haitian TPS holder. If the Administration successfully revokes TPS, parents would be faced with an impossible choice to either return to the country where they were born and leave their families behind, take their U.S. citizen children with them to an unsafe country they do not know, or stay in the U.S. without legal status and risk fear, uncertainty, and deportation at any moment. 

AG Campbell and the coalition also recognize the significant economic contributions of Haitian and Venezuelan TPS holders. Nationwide, Venezuelan TPS holders contribute over $11 billion to the economy each year. Haitian TPS holders contribute $4.4 billion annually. Sixty nine percent of Haitian immigrants aged 16 and older were members of the civilian labor force in 2022, with high rates of participation in health care support and service industries. Furthermore, a recent estimate found that 75,000 TPS-eligible Haitians work in labor-short industries.   

Massachusetts is home to one of the nation’s largest Haitian populations, including more than 15,000 Haitian TPS holders. Massachusetts’s Department of Developmental Services alone employs dozens of Haitian TPS holders, who provide care to some of Massachusetts’s most vulnerable populations. Stripping TPS recipients of their legal status and work authorization will cause irreparable harm to families, workforces, and state economies.   

Revoking TPS for these communities would leave many without work authorization, jeopardizing their ability to provide for their families. In addition, the employer-sponsored health care that they and their families rely on would also be at risk, posing significant public health threats.  

In March, AG Campbell co-led a coalition of 19 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, supporting Haitian-Americans United’s challenge to the Trump Administration's unprecedented early terminations of TPS for Haitians and Venezuelans. In September, AG Campbell co-led a coalition of 18 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in Miot, et. al. v. Trump, et al. supporting a challenge to the Trump Administration’s attempt to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation and strip legal immigration status from hundreds of thousands of Haitians living and working in the United States.   

Joining AG Campbell in filing this brief are the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.