(RNS) — In a last-minute ruling on Monday (Feb. 2), a U.S. district judge in Washington halted the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to terminate temporary protected status for Haitian immigrants. TPS, which allows designated refugees to live and work in the United States, was set to expire on Tuesday (Feb. 3).  

In her ruling on Miot v. Trump, which was filed in July 2025, Judge Ana C. Reyes said the TPS termination announced by DHS Secretary Krisi Noem was “null, void, and of no legal effect.” 

In her opinion, Judge Reyes wrote that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s claims that Haiti’s current situation didn’t justify an extension of the status didn’t align with the certified administrative record’s findings that the island was plagued by a “perfect storm of suffering” and “staggering humanitarian toll.”

She also noted that Noem didn’t consult other agencies in taking her decision. The judge noted that she didn’t have unbounded discretion to end the status. 

“Secretary Noem complains of strains unlawful immigrants place on our immigration-enforcement system. Her answer? Turn 352,959 lawful immigrants into unlawful immigrants overnight. … This approach is many things—in the public interest is not one of them,” wrote Reyes. 

In Springfield, Ohio, some 15,000 Haitians, whose legal residence in the country depends on the DHS program, have held their collective breath for months.

Monday’s ruling came a few hours before TPS status was set to expire on Tuesday (Feb. 3) for 350,000 Haitians, following DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision a year ago to terminate their legal residence in the United States. Though the ruling offered temporary relief, Haitian faith leaders and community advocates said Haitians in New York, Boston, Miami and Ohio are bracing for intensified ICE raids targeting their community and preparing to double down on tactics they put in place over the past year.

The status, which has been extended several times, was granted to Haitians after the deadly earthquake that struck the island in 2010. In the past five years, however, tens of thousands of Haitians fleeing gang violence in Port-au-Prince, the country’s capital, have settled in the U.S. through a separate Biden administration program, known as CNHV, that is designed to grant Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans affected by adverse political situations at home the right to live and work in the country for two years.

About half a million migrants took advantage of the program. After the program was terminated by the Biden administration in the fall of 2024, many of those migrants were granted TPS status.

Last July, a federal district court judge stayed Noem’s initial order to terminate the Haitians’ TPS status as of September 2026. But Noem made clear that TPS would not be extended to the group again when it expired this month. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said at the time that TPS “was never intended to be a de facto asylum program, yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades.” 

On Jan. 28 of this year, a lawsuit led in part by Haitian American faith leaders in Massachusetts was successful in arguing that Noem’s attempt to vacate TPS status for Haitian refugees early was illegal, but it had no effect on the question of whether the status should be renewed when it expired.

The plaintiffs didn’t seek a ruling on whether it was safe for Haitians to return to Haiti, according to the plaintiffs’ attorney, Geoff Pipoly. Rather, it argues that Noem didn’t follow proper procedures on how to determine whether TPS status should be ended. “The government took the literal position that if Secretary Noem wanted to, she could decide whether to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation using nothing more than a coin flip,” Pipoly said in a recent interview.

This past month, Haitians around the country have fasted and prayed for a favorable outcome. In Boston, home to the country’s third-largest Haitian community, Pastor Dieufort Fleurissaint said members of his congregation at Total Health Christian Ministries have prayed for God to intervene in favor of TPS-holders.

“There is nothing that we can do to prepare,” he said. “How do you prepare for mass deportation of your congregants? We’re definitely relying and depending on God for divine intervention.”

At a Jan. 20 congressional hearing in Washington, Fleurissaint and business owners convened to highlight that Haitian migrants were “peaceful and productive citizens.”

Despite Monday’s ruling, some Haitians are preparing for the worst. Manny Daphnis, a member of the Haitian Evangelical Pastors of New England, said the group expects ICE agents to focus on Haitian communities. Boston officials expect a large influx of ICE agents in the city this week as the TPS deadline approaches, according to the Springfield News-Sun.

In Springfield, Ohio, Haitian TPS-holders have been on the edge as the case proceeded, said Dorsainvil, and the expectation the DHS will continue its pressure means the future remains uncertain. 

“That creates that type of panic and uncertainty in the community,” said Dorsainvil, a plaintiff in the Miot v. Trump case. “They are at the mercy of God, being so fearful, not knowing what can happen to them.”

Faith leaders in other places where Haitians are strongly represented have stood up for continuation of the group’s TPS status. Last week, Miami’s Catholic archbishop, the Most Rev. Thomas Wenski, at a press conference organized by the archdiocese, stood in support of TPS, saying Haitians shouldn’t be forced “into a crisis in Haiti or create a crisis here, forcing them out of their jobs. They’re not violating the laws; they’re documented.”

In Massachusetts and Ohio, churches are working with community members and interfaith networks to reduce the risk for Haitians. Last week, members of the Haitian Evangelical Pastors of New England took part in a Zoom meeting with Minnesota clergy who have been protesting ICE’s presence to learn how to avoid trouble with federal agents. The Minnesotans suggested taking down sensitive content from YouTube and Facebook, removing protest signs from church property and posting ushers at the door. 

“We wanted to give clergy here a sense of not just what’s happening, but what may, frankly, be on our doorstep within a matter of days or weeks,” said Daphnis, who noted what they described was “unimaginable, not America.” 

In recent months, the Massachusetts Community Action Network, an affiliate of the Faith in Action network, and the LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts have partnered to record ICE arrests and connect detainees’ families with attorneys.

Daphnis said some undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens alike have shared being afraid to leave their homes. At some churches, attendance has dropped as community members fear interactions with ICE agents, he said.

“While we’re not seeing ICE at church doors as of yet, we are certainly seeing the impact of the noise and the chatter in (the) community,” said Daphnis.

“The angst of this moment is about brown and Black people feeling targeted by an administration that deems us as negligible,” he said. “What I understand and know is that when the people of God come together and seek the face of the Lord, God shows up.”