A lifeline for Haiti could soon be severed by the US Supreme Court

(CNN) — Ysmael is already feeling the squeeze of rising prices in Haiti. “Everything has gone up,” she says in a World Food Programme video, from the fare for a ride on a “tap-tap” bus to the cost of putting dinner on the table, all due to fuel price hikes linked to the Iran war.

But those who managed to leave the violence-wracked, impoverished nation, making a life for themselves in the United States, are helping people back home stay afloat. That money has been a lifeline for many, in one of the most remittance-dependent countries in the world.

That could come to a grinding halt if the US Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 350,000 Haitians – a status that lets them legally live and work in the US.

In February, the US Supreme Court paused the administration’s termination of TPS – an immigration status granted to people from certain countries where conditions temporarily prevent their nationals from safely returning.

On Wednesday, the court will start to hear oral arguments after the Trump administration appealed the decision.

Ahead of the anticipated termination earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security said the program for Haiti “was never intended to be a de facto asylum program, yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades.”

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the administration, opening the door for hundreds of thousands of Haitians to be deported, “it would be like having the rug pulled out from under you,” says Amnesty International USA’s Director of Refugee and Migrant Rights, Amy Fischer.

“We know that people simply cannot be deported safely to Haiti,” says Fischer.

A return to danger

Gang attacks continue to shake the nation, with a spate of deadly assaults in Haiti’s Artibonite region last month. Dozens were killed and thousands fled their homes, pushing Haiti’s existing displacement crisis closer to the brink.

And earlier this month, armed attacks on a police station in the commune of Marigot in the country’s south left at least six dead, according to police.

Haitian rights groups like Defenders Plus, say the violence is even reaching areas that were once seen as “havens of peace.” Armed groups who block roads and key supply routes have made access to necessities near impossible in some cases.

Communities are still facing daily challenges accessing food, water and basic services because of the rampant insecurity, says CARE’s interim country director in Haiti, Rachelle Arnoux.

Jerome Fritsch, a physician at the MSF hospital in Cite Soleil, says the gang violence is hindering people from seeking much-needed medical care. Two weekends ago, he says rival armed groups were fighting, in a flare-up of violence his team says is the worst they’ve seen in the area in two years.

The violence lasted until last Wednesday, but the team still has its guard up. Ready to seek shelter as needed and move patients away from windows where they could be exposed.

“We have no idea if tomorrow it’s going to start again,” he says.

And then there’s the food insecurity that has reached staggering levels for millions of Haitians. According to a recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) projection for March to June 2026, 52 percent of the population are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity.

Haiti’s recent catastrophic floods have only compounded the country’s overlapping crises. The United Nations’ humanitarian office said this month that rainfall triggered severe flooding in the North-West department, killing at least 12 people, flooding more than 1,000 homes, displacing people and leading to agricultural and livelihood losses.

“Deportation is not an option right now,” said Guerline Jozef, head of The Haitian Bridge Alliance, an advocacy group that focuses on migration issues facing Black migrants.

If TPS holders are stripped of their status and deported, the results could be catastrophic, rights groups warn. Thousands of TPS holders stand to lose the life they built for themselves in the US – but millions of Haitians back home could see their lives upended, plunged further into extreme poverty, hunger, and displacement.

“If we cut off those ties that Haitians in the United States have to be able to send back that money, we can only predict that it will force more people to leave Haiti, searching for safety and stability,” warns Fischer.

Approximately 750,000 households in Haiti receive remittances from Haitians in the US, says Manuel Orozco, director of the Migration, Remittances, and Development Program at the Inter-American Dialogue. About 40% of those remitters in the US are likely on TPS, he says.

For some people, it’s their only income and sole way of affording food and medication.

According to Inter-American Dialogue, Haitian migrants’ transfers went from 12 percent of the country’s GDP in 2012 to more than a quarter in 2022.

Remittances are Haiti’s main source of foreign exchange, according to the think tank, which said the funds “mainly help sustain private consumption, pay for school fees as well as healthcare and thus end up improving the country’s human development outcomes and mitigate the incidence of poverty.”

At a UN Security Council session on Haiti this month, leaders recognized some progress being made in the security situation – albeit a drop in the ocean. There’s a new multinational force known as the Gang Suppression Force, with US backing, which aims to stabilize Haiti and ultimately make the country capable of functioning without the foreign force.

But spending money on an international force while opening the door for mass deportations of TPS-holders back to the country – if that’s how the court rules – could be counterproductive to that aim.

Mass deportations will put an added burden to the country’s already-strained resources, facilities and infrastructure, experts say – and only increase the number of people struggling to make ends meet.

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