SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (AP) — A federal judge on Monday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from ending temporary protections that have allowed roughly 350,000 Haitians to live and work in the U.S.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington granted a request to pause the termination of temporary protected status for Haitians while a lawsuit challenging it proceeds.

The TPS designation for people from the Caribbean island country was scheduled to expire Tuesday.

“We can breathe for a little bit,” said Rose-Thamar Joseph, the operations director of the Haitian Support Center in Springfield, Ohio. “It is not a final victory, because a judge cannot redesign a country for TPS or extend the TPS, but it means a lot for us.”

Earlier Monday, two dozen faith leaders and hundreds of congregants in Springfield sang and prayed together in support of Haitian migrants who feared their protected status could end this week. They were hopeful that the federal judge might intervene.

Reyes said in an accompanying 83-page opinion that plaintiffs were likely to prevail on the merits of the case, and that she found it “substantially likely” that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem preordained her termination decision because of “hostility to nonwhite immigrants.”

“During the stay, the Termination shall be null, void, and of no legal effect,” the judge said in her two-page order, adding that for now, the termination has no bearing on their ability to work and to be protected from detention and deportation.

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin denounced the ruling as “lawless activism.”

“Haiti’s TPS was granted following an earthquake that took place over 15 years ago,” she said in a statement. “It was never intended to be a de facto amnesty program, yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades.”

DHS says Haiti has improved, but community leaders say it’s still unsafe

Temporary Protected Status can be granted by the Homeland Security secretary if conditions in home countries are deemed unsafe for return due to a natural disaster, political instability or other dangers. While it grants TPS holders the right to live and work in the U.S., it does not provide a legal pathway to citizenship.

Haiti’s TPS status was initially activated in 2010 after a catastrophic earthquake and has been extended multiple times. The country is racked by gang violence that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

The Trump administration has aggressively sought to remove the protection, making more people eligible for deportation. The moves are part of the administration’s wider, mass deportation effort.

In addition to the migrants from Haiti, Noem has terminated protections for about 600,000 Venezuelans, 60,000 people from Honduras, Nicaragua and Nepal, more than 160,000 Ukrainians and thousands of people from Afghanistan and Cameroon. Some have pending lawsuits in federal courts.

“If the termination stands, people will almost certainly die,” attorneys for Haitian TPS holders wrote in a court filing in December. “Some will likely be killed, others will likely die from disease, and yet others will likely starve to death.”

They say the decision to end Haiti’s status was motivated by racial animus, and Noem failed to consider whether there was an ongoing armed conflict that would pose a “serious threat” to personal safety, as required by law.

DHS said conditions in Haiti had improved. In a court filing in December, attorneys for the administration said the plaintiffs’ claims of racial animus were based on statements “taken out of context, often from other speakers and from years ago, and without direct links to the Secretary’s determinations.”

“Rather, Secretary Noem provided reasoned, facially sufficient explanations for her determinations.” they said.

A government notice in November announcing the termination said there had been some positive developments for Haiti, including authorization of a new, multinational force to combat gangs. Noem determined allowing Haitians to remain in the U.S. was against the national interest, the notice said.

Jerome Bazard, a member of the First Haitian Evangelical Church of Springfield, said it’s still too dangerous for many in his community to return to Haiti.

“They can’t go to Haiti because it’s not safe. Without the TPS, they can’t work. And if they can’t work, they can eat, they can’t pay bills. You’re killing the people,” he said.

Haitians in Springfield are fraught with uncertainty

Uncertainty over TPS has deepened worries for an already embattled Haitian community in Springfield.

Trump denigrated the community of about 15,000 Haitians while campaigning in 2024 for a second term, falsely accusing its members of eating their neighbor’s cats and dogs as he pitched voters on his plans for an immigration crackdown. The false claims exacerbated fears about division and anti-immigrant sentiment in the mostly white, working class city of about 59,000 people.

In the weeks after his comments, schools, government buildings and the homes of elected officials received bomb threats.

Since then, Haitians in Springfield have lived in constant fear that has only been exacerbated by the federal immigration crackdowns happening in Minneapolis and other cities, said Viles Dorsainvil, a leader of the city’s Haitian Community Help and Support Center.

Many of the children in Springfield’s Haitian community are U.S. citizens who have parents in the country illegally. Some families are too afraid to send their kids to school. If they are detained, Dorsainvil said, some parents have signed caregiver affidavits that designate a legal guardian in hopes of keeping their kids out of foster care.

Volunteers from nearby towns have offered to deliver food to those afraid to leave home, Dorsainvil said. Others have been stockpiling groceries in case immigration officers flood the community.

Some, he said, have been receiving desperate calls from family members abroad asking them to leave. “They keep telling them that Springfield is not a safe place now for them to stay.”

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Associated Press journalists Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City and Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

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