Special Coverage TPS for Haitians ending February 3
By Philip Cardella January 19, 2026
Liberty City, Miami, Florida
The 49th Martin Luther King Jr. parade, one of the oldest parades in honor of the slain civil rights leader, marched down NW 54th Street, a road Dr. King travelled several times during his life.
As usual, the Service Employees International Union, a nearly 100 year old trade union that Dr. King supported, marched in the parade.
This year, however, was different. There was an urgency in the SEIU unions (32BJ and SEIU 1199) and their allies (UniteHere355 and WeCount–along with clergy) in their steps and in their signs. This year, they had a specific message: "Extend TPS," Temporary Protected Status for Haitians living in America, which is set to expire on February 3, 2026.
Last week I posted a video with a 32BJ union leader, Harris Harrigan and another woman who fled the violence in Haiti several years ago, pleading for TPS to be extended for Haitians. If you didn't watch the video, I highly recommend you do so now.
This week I captured more videos with more urgency as union leaders and members plead for the rights of their fellow workers.
As the Florida District Leader of 32BJ SEIU, Andy Cabrera puts it, fewer Haitians working in South Florida means harder work for every one in the union.
More importantly, "An injury to one, is an injury to all," meaning, if they can come for Haitian workers they can–and will–come for others. No one is safe.
This is a very short interview with him at the end of the parade.
During the parade, along with the fans in the picture at the top, the SEIU unions led by 32BJ also had print outs that read:
What is happening with Haitian TPS and how will it affect South Florida?
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is a humanitarian program that lets nationals from countries facing disasters, conflict, or unsafe conditions live and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation; currently designated countries include El Salvador, Somalia, Lebanon, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and Ukraine alongside Haiti.
However, Haiti's TPS is facing a critical expiration, set to end on February 3, 2026 after federal court rulings blocked earliers termination, placing more than 330,000 Haitian TPS holders at risk of losing their legal status and work authorization unless a new policy change intervenes.
This MLK Day we ask that Haitian TPS be extended and that hard working families be given a chance to thrive in peace and with dignity in South Florida.
"Learn more here" the flyer concludes with a link to this story in the Miami Times, Miami's oldest black owned newspaper.
A section of that piece in the Miami Times stood out to me in particular includes a quote from Paul Christian Namphy, an organizer with Family Action Network Movement, a Miami nonprofit with deep connections to the Haitian community in South Florida and a South Florida resident named Michael Lambert.
For Michael Lambert, a TPS holder in the U.S. for nearly five decades, the situation takes a severe mental toll.
“I’m a nervous wreck,” he said. “Every day, I look outside, I hear sirens, and I’m thinking they’re coming for me.”
According to Namphy, families face three impossible choices as the deadline approaches:
"Are you going to stay in the shadows, in fear, where at any moment anything can happen to you? Are you going to try to go to a third country? Or are you going to go to Haiti under very difficult conditions?"
Lambert represents the deep integration of TPS holders. He sold property in Haiti to build a life here, only to face losing it all. When asked about his plans following Feb. 3, Lambert said he feels he has no choice.
“If it is what it is, I would just have to go back to my country and try to avoid getting killed,” leaving his kids and wife behind, he said. “I don’t know, my marriage might end up being gone too, because out of sight.”
The Miami Herald has run stories on TPS ending, including this one "From protection to peril: what the end of TPS means for Haitians in South Florida, elsewhere."
CBS News spent some time talking about it last week as well. As did USA Today (paywalled, sorry)
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None of this is new, in fact, it stretches back by some accounts to the Obama Administration when TPS was first extended to Haitians after a devastating earthquake in 2010 destabilized an already unstable country.
As a historian, however, I'd say that it stretches back far further, to the founding of this country, when enslaved people in Haiti rose up against their enslavers in the name of George Washington, literally (while Washington was still alive!) and founded the first Black republic in the world.
White Americans were terrified and immediately did everything they could to force Haiti back into bondage.
For many historians, one of the definitive books on the study of history itself is Michel-Rolph Trouillot's Silencing the Past, which is about Haiti's revolution and how people inside Haiti but especially the United States tried to erase that history.
This is part of the fuel in the fire of the SEIU unions at Monday's parade.
The other part is, as they say, "An injury to one is an injury to all." They know, when any group is targeted it dramatically impacts every group. What's more, if one group can be targeted, then any group can and will be targeted eventually.
So, what can you do? I'm not sure, other than reaching out to your House member or Senators to ask that they demand an extension of TPS for Haitians, and other countries facing revocation of their status.
GovFacts
Various images from the SEIU march during 49th MLK Day Parade in Liberty City, Miami, Florida on 19 January 2026. Photo credits Philip Cardella.
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