Attorney General Bonta Urges U.S. Supreme Court to Deny Request to Unlawfully Terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haitians

OAKLAND - California Attorney General Rob Bonta today co-led a coalition of 19 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in Miot v. Trump opposing the Trump Administration's unlawful efforts to terminate Haiti's Temporary Protected Status (TPS). TPS provides temporary legal status to immigrants living in the United States due to dangerous conditions in their home countries. Last year, the Trump Administration published a Federal Register notice "newly terminating" TPS for Haiti, effective February 3, 2026, jeopardizing the legal status of hundreds of thousands of Haitian TPS holders nationwide. In today's brief, Attorney General Bonta urges the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold lower courts' orders and deny the Trump Administration's unlawful and unconstitutional request to terminate TPS for Haiti, to avert immediate and irreparable harm to families, economies and workforces, public revenues, public health, and public safety.

"The Trump Administration's attempt to terminate Haiti's Temporary Protected Status is not only unlawful, but it betrays the promise that this country stands as a place of safety and opportunity for all,"said Attorney General Bonta. "Haitian TPS holders came to the U.S. to seek refuge from natural disasters, violence, and political instability in their home country. They are our neighbors, our caregivers, our teachers, and our friends. To strip their protections would not just disrupt their lives, it would harm communities up and down our state, our economy, public health, and public safety. I urge the Supreme Court to uphold the lower court's order and reject the Trump Administration's attempt to jam through termination of Haiti's TPS designation."

TPS is a critical humanitarian tool and part of the United States' long history of providing safe haven to those fleeing armed conflict, natural disasters, or other crises that make the return of TPS holders to their home countries unsafe. The Amici States are home to hundreds of thousands of Haitian immigrants, who are able to live and work in the United States because of TPS. Many Haitian TPS holders have lived here for a decade or more and have started families and businesses, bought homes, and significantly contributed to their communities. To revoke these long-standing protections would force families who have established their lives in the U.S. to return to unstable and dangerous conditions. Despite DHS acknowledging in the November 28, 2025, termination notice that conditions in Haiti are "concerning" and that many people there "have been forced to flee their homes and are internally displaced due to escalating violence," the Secretary of Homeland Security terminated Haiti's TPS designation. The U.S. State Department continues to classify Haiti as a "Level 4: Do Not Travel" country, its highest risk designation reserved for severe threats.

In today's amicus brief, the coalition explains that allowing the termination to take effect would inflict widespread, irreparable harm including on:

• Families - countless of whom include U.S. citizen children - who will suffer trauma and hardship from unnecessary and forced separation.
• The economy, which is enriched by the employment, entrepreneurship, and contributions of TPS holders, with $4.4 billion annually contributed by TPS Haitians alone.
• Public revenues, which are enhanced by the taxes contributed by TPS holders, including an estimated $19 billion alone in property taxes.
• Public health, depriving many Haitian TPS holders and their U.S. citizen families of their employer-sponsored health insurance.
• Public safety, which will be damaged by making Haitian TPS holders less likely to report crime.

Attorney General Bonta is committed to protecting the nearly 10 million immigrants who call California home. Last month, Attorney General Bonta co-led an amicus brief opposing the Trump Administration's efforts to terminate Haiti's TPS in the D.C. Circuit. In November 2025, Attorney General Bonta co-led an amicus brief opposing the Trump Administration's termination of TPS for Venezuelans and Haitians. He has repeatedly supported challenges to the early termination of the TPS designation for Haitians and Venezuelans, and defended pathways for legal immigration for those fleeing dangerous conditions in their home countries. Attorney General Bonta has secured permanent injunctions blocking the Trump Administration's attempts to illegally condition homeland security and transportation funding on state participation in immigration enforcement. And he has temporarily blocked the Trump Administration's efforts to impose cruel new restrictions on access to public benefit programs based on immigration status while litigation continues.

In filing today's brief, Attorney General Bonta and the attorneys general of Massachusetts, Illinois and New York lead the attorneys general of Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaiʻi, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.