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People are furious with Trump's decision to end temporary protection for Haitians

More than 100,000 people died after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti.

Sasha Lekach

on November 20, 2017

People are furious with Trump's decision to end temporary protection for Haitians

Trump is ending the "Temporary Protected Status" program for Haitians, despite efforts to renew it. Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

When news spread Monday that the Trump administration decided to end a program that gives temporary protected status, or TPS, to Haitians displaced by a 2010 earthquake, social media erupted in anger.

About 59,000 Haitians live and work in the U.S. under the program -- once it ends, it will force those Haitians to return to their slowly recovering country by July 2019 or risk deportation.

More than 100,000 people died as a result of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake. Homes, buildings and infrastructure were destroyed, and the country is still struggling to recover. The country was granted temporary protection after the devastation. Nearly 60,000 Haitians came to the U.S.

Now that's ending. The Department of Homeland Security says that conditions have improved enough for families to head back, according to the Associated Press.

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People expressed their outrage over the Trump administration's decision on Twitter.

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That's 18 months for Haitians living in the U.S. to pack up and leave.

The Haiti Advocacy Working Group earlier this year urged Congress to extend the program. The coalition had argued then that "deporting them would destabilize Haiti and injure U.S. national security."

Trump already shut down the protection program for Sudan and Nicaragua. In July, the White House will decide the fate of a similar program for 86,000 people from Honduras, according to the AP.

It may be nine years after the earthquake, but for many Haitians, it feels too soon.

Topics Social Good Donald Trump Politics Immigration

Sasha Lekach

Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.