10 Republicans help Democrats pass resolution extending TPS protections for Haitian migrants

The House on Thursday passed a resolution requiring the Trump administration to extend temporary legal protections for Haitian migrants after a small group of Republicans helped Democrats force it to the floor using a rarely successful maneuver.

The lower chamber passed the resolution by a vote of 224-204, with ten Republicans crossing the aisle: Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Mike Lawler (N.Y.), Don Bacon (Neb.) Maria Elvira Salazar (Fla.), Carlos Gimenez (Fla.), Nicole Malliotakis (N.Y.), Rich McCormick (Ga.), Mike Turner (Ohio), Mike Carey (Ohio) and Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.). Rep. Kevin Kiley (Calif.), an independent who caucuses with Republicans, also voted “yes.”

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) led the discharge petition to force a vote on the resolution, which garnered the necessary 218 signatures at the end of March. Fitzpatrick, Bacon, Lawler and Salazar had signed onto the petition, sidestepping Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).

A discharge petition allows the minority party to force a measure to the floor if it can garner 218 signatures. They rarely reach that threshold because it requires some members of the majority party to buck their leadership and sign on, but an unusual number of discharge petitions have been successful this Congress.

“It’s no secret, there are differences of opinion on all aspects of our immigration system…but this issue in particular is one that I do think there is bipartisan support behind, because the reality is 40% of the Haitian population lives in the United States of America. 40%. And we have seen over the last 15 years, a country that has been besieged by natural disasters, by political unrest, by gang violence, kidnapping, gun trafficking, human trafficking, drug trafficking,” Lawler said in a press conference on Wednesday.

“There is no question that TPS is meant to be temporary, but in order to effectuate the immigration laws of this country, we have to be honest when we are enacting it. Sending people back to Haiti to unsafe conditions when they are currently here lawfully is unjust and unwise,” Lawler added. 

Gimenez told The Hill before the vote that he represents a lot of Haitians in his community. 

“Haiti is a mess, and I don’t think it’s right to send, you know, the good, law-abiding Haitians – they may be here, you know, actually they have Temporary Protected Status. They’re actually kind of legal, okay, when they’ve been able to work the last year, send them back to Haiti…so I don’t think it’s right,” he said. 

Created in 1990, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protects foreign nationals who cannot safely return to their home countries because of armed conflict, natural disaster or other temporary conditions. It prevents deportation and provides recipients with a pathway to work authorization. 

The Trump administration has sought to revoke TPS for Haitian nationals, arguing that conditions in the Caribbean country no longer justified the designation. The policy was supposed to take effect early last month, but a federal judge temporarily blocked its implementation the day before, pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed by five Haitian TPS holders last summer. The battle is now playing out in the Supreme Court. 

Pressley said in a press conference Wednesday that the “stakes could not be higher right now.”

“Let us be clear about what deportation would mean. We would be sending parents back into danger, ripping our seniors away from their caregivers, faith leaders back into instability, and essential workers back into insecurity,” she said. “To deport anyone to a country that is grappling with layered political, humanitarian and economic crises is unconscionable. It is dangerous and it is preventable.”

The resolution heads to the Senate, though it faces an uphill climb to passage. 

Zach Schonfeld and Sophie Brams contributed to this report.

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