What does the end of TPS mean for Haitian workers in the U.S.?
Make Me Smart
Marketplace
4.6 • 5.5K Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2026
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In line with President Trump’s broader crackdown on immigration, the administration has moved to end the Temporary Protected Status program for certain countries including Venezuela and Haiti. TPS has allowed immigrants from countries with unsafe environments to temporarily live and work legally in the United States for decades. On today’s show, Marketplace’s Elizabeth Trovall joins Kimberly to share her recent reporting on Haitian care workers in Florida who will soon lose their legal status and the wider impact it could have on the U.S. economy.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone, I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where none of us is as smart as all of us. |
| 0:12.9 | With everything going on in Minnesota, the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration |
| 0:17.5 | has been on a lot of people's minds. And not just in Minnesota. It's been happening |
| 0:21.9 | all over the country. And today, we want to look at another aspect of the president's immigration |
| 0:27.2 | agenda. His moves to end the temporary protected status, or TPS program, for several countries, |
| 0:34.6 | including Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti, and others. |
| 0:38.1 | TPS for Haitians in particular is set to expire on February 3rd, just a few days from now. |
| 0:44.2 | And my colleague Elizabeth Trouval has been reporting on how this could impact Haitian immigrant communities in Florida. |
| 0:51.0 | She's here to tell us all about it. |
| 0:52.5 | Welcome to the show, Liz. |
| 0:55.3 | Thanks. Great to be here. |
| 1:02.8 | So first of all, remind us what exactly does temporary protected status mean? Well, |
| 1:09.5 | temporary protected status is one of those things that's like, it's temporary, but it's been used. People have been on temporary protected status. They've used temporary protected status to live and work in this country legally for, in some cases, decades. |
| 1:20.3 | But Haitians in particular were first granted temporary protected status after the 2010 earthquake. |
| 1:28.2 | And this is a program basically designed for people leaving a crisis, whether it be a war or a natural disaster that may need to flee to the United States, but the idea being you're not coming here permanently, you're just coming until whatever's going down in your country is resolved, |
| 1:44.5 | right? Yeah, exactly. It's kind of a handy tool for people who are facing really dire |
| 1:52.9 | conditions to be able to be in the U.S. and have kind of a life raft, right? So they can, again, |
| 1:58.7 | work legally, make money for their family, you know, |
| 2:03.5 | provide for themselves, and not be worried about being deported, right? And yes, the idea is that |
| 2:09.6 | once a country stabilizes, then people can go home. Why has this program for various countries |
| 2:16.9 | been extended so many times? And what's been the pushback to ending it? |
| 2:22.6 | I mean, the conditions in a lot of countries have, has not gotten better. |
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