Florida Republican says deporting Haitians with TPS would be ‘huge mistake’

Protesters gather during a candlelight vigil at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood international airport as airport workers and faith leaders rally calling on the federal government to extend TPS for Haiti on 28 January 2026. Photograph: Al Diaz/Miami Herald via Getty Images View image in fullscreen Protesters gather during a candlelight vigil at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood international airport as airport workers and faith leaders rally calling on the federal government to extend TPS for Haiti on 28 January 2026. Photograph: Al Diaz/Miami Herald via Getty Images Florida Republican says deporting Haitians with TPS would be ‘huge mistake’ ‘Haiti is a failed state’, says Carlos Giménez, congressman and Miami Cuban exile, after controversial court ruling Carlos Giménez, a Republican congressman from Florida, broke with the Trump administration on Sunday, calling on the White House to reconsider its push to eliminate temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitian migrants. Returning some 350,000 Haitians to their chaotic, dangerous homeland following the US supreme court’s ruling that the Trump administration can cut off temporary legal protections, would be a grave error, Giménez said. “Haiti is a failed state, and I think that deporting Haitians that are under TPS right now, back to Haiti, would be a huge mistake,” he told CBS News . Giménez also called for the re-instatement of TPS status to Venezuelans after the record-breaking twin earthquakes that struck north-central Venezuela on 24 June. Temporary protected status, Giménez said, “is meant to safeguard those who are either fleeing countries that are failed states and are at risk of going back to them or countries that really can’t handle them right now, as is the case with Venezuela that has suffered a natural disaster”. View image in fullscreen Carlos Giménez, as mayor of Miami-Dade, Florida, during a rally with Venezuelans living in Miami, Florida, on 1 February 2020. Photograph: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Reuters Giménez, whose family fled Cuba when he was seven, represents part of Miami-Dade county, home to some 110,000 residents of Haitian ancestry. The supreme court ruling authorized the administration’s plans to end TPS for over 350,000 Haitians and approximately 6,000 Syrians. A guidance issued last week by the Department of Homeland security said TPS Haiti beneficiaries will keep their status and employment authorization “until the lower courts align with the US Supreme Court’s favorable decision”. View image in fullscreen Carlos Giménez addresses Cuban Americans demonstrators outside the White House in Washington DC on 26 July 2021. Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA Giménez’s comments align with those of Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, whose state is home to a thriving Haitian community in the town of Springfield that Donald Trump and JD Vance spread false claims about during their 2024 election campaign to justify their anti-immigration agenda. DeWine called on the Trump administration last week to