ICE to target Haitians as Temporary Protected Status is set to end, sources say

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has made plans to ramp up operations to arrest and deport Haitian migrants, as hundreds of thousands of Haitians brace for the termination of their legal status, according to two agency sources and federal documents obtained by CBS News.

The internal plans for a potential arrest and deportation blitz have been made as more than 300,000 Haitians prepare to lose deportation protections and work permits under the Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, program. The Supreme Court last month sided with the Trump administration in its efforts to end the TPS programs for Haitians and Syrians. That ruling's binding mandate is set to be issued to lower courts on Monday.

Since that ruling, fear and uncertainty have swept throughout Haitian communities across the U.S. Immigrants whose TPS lapses immediately lose their ability to work in the country legally, and become eligible to be arrested and processed for deportation by ICE, unless they have another status. Those without removal orders are generally entitled to appear before an immigration judge before any deportation can take place.

The operations targeting Haitian migrants could start as early as this week, the documents suggest, but more details about the scale of the plans were not immediately clear. The ICE sources who described the preparations requested anonymity to describe internal plans that have not been publicly disclosed and are fluid.

Any uptick in deportations to Haiti would almost certainly raise political and humanitarian challenges, given the dire situation in the Caribbean nation, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Significant portions of Haiti are controlled by criminal gangs, and the U.S. has generally limited deportations to Cap-Haïtien, in the country's north, due to the instability and insecurity in the capital of Port-au-Prince. The State Department urges Americans not to visit Haiti under any circumstances, citing the rampant violence there.

In a statement to CBS News, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said it "does not discuss ongoing or future operations." It argued TPS has been used as a "defacto amnesty program" and suggested that those set to lose their status should self-deport.

"What we would say now is it's closing time which means you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here," DHS added in its statement. "The good news is it's not too late to get a $2,600 check and a free flight home."

Created in 1990 by Congress, TPS allows federal immigration officials to grant temporary work permits and a r