WASHINGTON: The Trump administration canceled on Thursday an extension of Temporary Protected Status that was granted to more than 500,000 Haitians by former president Joe Biden.
The United States grants Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to foreign citizens who cannot safely return home because of war, natural disasters or other “extraordinary” conditions.
It had been extended for Haitians by 18 months, to February 2026, by the Biden administration, but will now expire on August 3.
“President Trump and I are returning TPS to its original status: temporary,” Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem said in a department statement.
“This is part of President Trump’s promise to rescind policies that were magnets for illegal immigration and inconsistent with the law,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) statement said.
The number of Haitians eligible for protection has skyrocketed from 57,000 in 2011 to 520,694 in 2024, according to the US government’s estimates.
The TPS extension afforded by Biden was “far longer than justified or necessary,” said a DHS spokeswoman.
Trump – who during his election campaign said that immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of the United States – quickly ordered a review of the whole TPS program on returning to office.
During his campaign he made baseless claims that Ohio city had seen a recent influx of Haitian migrants who were stealing and eating residents’ cats and dogs.
“The Trump administration is ripping stability away from half a million Haitians who have built their lives here -children, workers, parents, and neighbors who have become integral to American communities and contributed to our economy,” said Beatriz Lopez, Co-Executive Director of the Immigration Hub, an organization working on advancing policy solutions for aspiring citizens.
“This reckless decision doesn’t just harm them; it destabilizes the very businesses, families, and local economies that rely on them.”
Last month, the Trump administration revoked protection from deportation for more than 600,000 Venezuelans in the United States.
“The people of this country want these dirtbags out. They want their communities to be safe,” Noem said on Fox News in January.
Struck by a devastating earthquake in 2010, Haiti has suffered from chronic political instability for decades and more recently from increasing violence by armed groups.
Despite the election of Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime in November and the deployment of a UN-backed security mission to support Haiti’s national police, violence persists.
At least 5,601 people were killed by gang violence in Haiti in 2024, according to the UN.

WASHINGTON: US and Russian participants have met in Switzerland for unofficial talks about the Ukraine war in recent months, including as recently as last week, three sources with knowledge of the matter said.
While the attendees have diplomatic and security experience, they are not government officials and it was not immediately clear if any were sent by their governments, two of the sources said. The sources declined to identify the attendees. The sources described the talks as a side channel with some contacts occurring during the transition period following US President Donald Trump’s Nov. 5 election victory.
At least a small number of advisers to Trump are aware of the encounters, said one of the sources, who had direct knowledge of the matter.
Many other details remain unclear, including whether Ukrainians were present, when the encounters began and what the meetings’ agendas covered.
But the previously undisclosed meetings highlight behind-the-scenes US and Russian efforts to explore ways to end the Ukraine war despite a near-freeze on official contact under Trump’s predecessor, former President Joe Biden. Trump, in office for just a month, has upended the US approach toward the three-year-old Ukraine conflict, engaging directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin and pushing for a quick deal to end the war. On Tuesday, top US officials met with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia, including Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
One of the sources described the Switzerland talks as “Track Two” discussions — diplomatic parlance for unofficial dialogue geared toward improving communication and floating ideas, rather than developing concrete proposals.
The White House National Security Council, the Ukrainian government and Russia’s foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
The Swiss foreign ministry said meetings are regularly held in Switzerland between parties involved in the Ukraine conflict on a Track Two basis, and that it was informed of them.
Organized by non-state actors, they enabled exchanges not directly involving governments, it said in a statement.
“These activities help to sustain diplomatic efforts relating to the conflict,” the ministry said.
Two of the sources said at least one encounter took place in Geneva during last week’s Munich Security Conference, a gathering of international political leaders and security chiefs in the German city. Reuters reported last year on separate Track Two talks in 2023 and early 2024, when Putin sent signals that he was willing to consider a ceasefire in Ukraine. Those talks appeared to come to nothing.
Historically, Track Two talks have helped build dialogue among deeply distrustful counterparties in the hope that better communication might lead to diplomatic breakthroughs.
In 2023, NBC reported that former US national security officials held secret talks with Russians believed to be close to the Kremlin, with some members eventually meeting with Lavrov, the foreign minister.
One of the sources suggested Track Two talks may have lost much of their relevance as US and Russian officials have established official channels of dialogue in recent weeks.