U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has prepared plans to step up arrests and deportations of Haitian nationals as hundreds of thousands of Haitians lose their legal status this week, CBS News reported, citing two agency sources and internal federal documents it obtained.
Operations could begin as early as this week, according to a CBS report by immigration reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez. The two ICE sources spoke on condition of anonymity, describing internal plans that have not been made public and that CBS said remain fluid.
The reported preparations arrive at the moment the legal protection ends. More than 300,000 Haitians are set to lose deportation protection and work authorization under Temporary Protected Status after the Supreme Court sided with the administration last month, CBS reported. The ruling’s binding mandate is scheduled to reach the lower courts on Monday.
The practical consequence for a TPS holder is immediate. Once the status lapses, a person loses the legal ability to work and becomes eligible for arrest and removal, unless they hold another status, CBS reported. Those without existing removal orders are generally entitled to see an immigration judge before any deportation can proceed.
Ohio named in the documents
The internal documents point to Ohio as a target, CBS reported — including the Haitian communities in cities such as Springfield — with plans to arrest migrants and move them quickly onto deportation flights to Haiti.
Springfield is not an incidental choice. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump amplified a baseless claim that Haitians in the city were eating residents’ pets, CBS noted — a false accusation that drew national attention to the community and that local officials repeatedly rejected at the time.
CBS reported it could not immediately establish the full scale of the plans.
Any increase in deportations to Haiti runs directly into the country’s own conditions, which the United States government has itself documented.
The State Department urges Americans not to travel to Haiti under any circumstances, citing rampant violence, CBS reported. Significant portions of the country are controlled by criminal gangs, and the United States has generally limited deportation flights to Cap-Haïtien, in the north, because of the insecurity in and around the capital, Port-au-Prince.
That is the contradiction Haitian advocates and members of Congress have pressed for weeks: the same government that tells its own citizens not to set foot in Haiti is preparing to return Haitians there.
Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, which assists Haitian migrants, told CBS News the threat has left the community reeling.
“Once again, our community members find themselves in a state of extreme trauma, fear, and terror,” Jozef said, according to CBS. She said one person compared the experience to a natural disaster with no end: “One of them told me it feels like a tsunami or an earthquake with nonstop aftershocks. Her little girl doesn’t even want to go to school for fear of coming home and not finding her mother.”
The administration’s position
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, told CBS News it “does not discuss ongoing or future operations.” The department argued that TPS has functioned as a “de facto amnesty program” and suggested those about to lose status should leave the country on their own.
DHS framed the deadline in the language of a bar at last call. “What we would say now is it’s closing time, which means you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here,” the department said in its statement to CBS. “The good news is it’s not too late to get a $2,600 check and a free flight home” — a reference to the administration’s offer of payment to migrants who self-deport.
The administration has argued that TPS programs encourage illegal immigration and that Democratic administrations extended them well past the temporary purpose Congress intended, CBS reported. It has terminated or moved to end the protection for immigrants from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and other countries.
A version of Haiti’s TPS designation has been in place since 2010, following the earthquake that year. But most Haitians currently enrolled arrived more recently, under the Biden administration — some crossing the southern border and others entering through legal pathways that the current White House has since shut down, according to CBS. That detail cuts against the frequent characterization of the current caseload as a decade-and-a-half-old holdover.
The termination has been moving through the courts for more than a year. In February, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes found the decision to end the program was “in part” rooted in “racial animus,” citing disparaging remarks about Haiti and immigrants by Mr. Trump and then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, CBS reported. The Supreme Court’s majority last month held that federal law bars judges from reviewing TPS determinations and found the President’s comments were not “overtly racial.”
The reported plans come as ICE operations have intensified over the summer, under pressure to reach 2,000 arrests a day, CBS reported. Bookings into ICE custody hit a monthly high for the current administration last month.
CBS also reported that the administration had scaled back large-scale roundups earlier this year after two U.S. citizens were killed by federal agents during a deployment to the Minneapolis area in January, and that during the more recent surge, two immigrants were killed by agents during traffic stops in Texas and Maine.
For Haitian families, the reported timeline collapses the distance between a court deadline and a knock at the door. The mandate reaches the lower courts on Monday. The operations, CBS reported, could begin the same week.
https://ctninfo.com/ice-plans-to-tar…cbs-news-reports/
Source: CBS News.
This article was originally written in English. Other language versions are produced using AI translation software, and errors are possible — the English version is authoritative. CTN also uses AI to convert text into audio.
