Six House Republicans have broken with Donald Trump on immigration, forcing a floor vote to restore temporary legal protections for some 350,000 Haitians living in the U.S.
The bill, co-introduced by Democrat Rep. Laura Gillen and Republican Rep. Michael Lawler, who both represent New York districts, would keep Haitians eligible for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for three years—a program designed for people from countries gripped by armed conflict or environmental disaster.
It marks the first time Republican lawmakers have voted to oppose Trump’s immigration policy since he returned to the White House. Many of the Republicans who broke ranks are facing increasingly difficult routes to re-election at the mid-terms as the threat of a blue wave terrifies Republicans.
Rep. Lawler, who is defending a narrow majority in New York’s 17th congressional district in the lower Hudson Valley, made clear why he crossed the aisle.
“I have one of the largest Haitian populations in the country in my district,” he told the Washington Post. “If you end [temporary protections] without addressing work authorization, it will cause a huge crisis in our health care system, especially in an area like mine, where a lot of our Haitian TPS holders are nurses.”
The move used a discharge petition—a legislative tool that lets 218 or more representatives bypass the House Speaker and bring a bill to the floor.
Joining Lawler were fellow Republican Reps. María Elvira Salazar and Carlos A. Gimenez of Florida, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Don Bacon of Nebraska, and Nicole Malliotakis, also of New York.
Several cited the healthcare sector’s reliance on Haitian workers in their districts. “These are Haitian immigrants who are working, paying taxes and contributing to our economy and fulfilling a healthcare need,” Malliotakis said in a statement to the Post. “To strip them of their status and deport them to a country in peril would be uncompassionate and misguided.”
The Trump administration moved to terminate TPS for Haitians in June, arguing that conditions had improved since the program was established in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake and declaring the country “safe.” Lower courts intervened to pause the termination—a ruling the administration has appealed—and the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on April 29.
Business groups have lobbied hard against ending the program. “We cannot afford to lose the very people staffing our hospitals and nursing homes,” Rebecca Shi, CEO of the American Business Immigration Coalition, told the Post. “The success of the Haitian TPS discharge petition shows that economic reality is finally breaking through partisan gridlock.”
Sarah Binder, a governance studies expert at the Brookings Institution, noted the particular significance of targeting immigration with a discharge petition. The move, she told the outlet, “goes straight at one of the Trump administration’s key deportation tools, which is to cancel this protected status for immigrants from particular countries.”
At least five discharge petitions have now gathered the required 218 signatures this Congress—a markedly higher tally than the two that succeeded in the previous session.
The House vote came days after Trump shared a social media video of a fatal attack allegedly carried out by a Haitian national at a Florida gas station, claiming that Democratic policies had allowed the alleged killer to obtain temporary protections.
The push to end Haitian TPS is part of a wider administration effort to cancel the program for well over a million people, among them Venezuelans, Hondurans, and Afghans. The final passage in the House is expected on Thursday or Friday.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment. An official said the administration understood members had to vote for their districts at times, but added that the “terrible bill” was “going nowhere and there has been a veto threat issued.”
