U.S.|‘Nowhere To Go’: T.P.S. Ruling Plunges Many Migrants Into Limbo

A week ago, the sanctuary at Notre Dame d’Haiti in Miami was immersed in intense prayer. The congregation gathered, hands open, in a long, rhythmic invocation in Creole for the preservation of Temporary Protected Status, which has allowed more than 330,000 Haitians to live and work lawfully in the United States for years.

Once Mass was over, the Rev. Reginald Jean-Mary said that all they were doing now was “praying and waiting.”

On Thursday, the long-awaited ruling by the Supreme Court landed like a bomb on the Haitian community in South Florida, the largest in the country. It quickly reverberated through Massachusetts; New York; Springfield, Ohio; and other places where Haitians have settled in large numbers.

Father Jean-Mary, after learning of the Supreme Court’s decision, seemed in shock. He declined to comment.

While focused on Haitians and several thousand Syrians with the protection, the court’s decision has implications for all 1.3 million T.P.S. holders in the United States, from more than a dozen countries. Some of them have been in the United States for many years.

El Salvador, Lebanon and Ukraine are among the countries covered by T.P.S. while efforts to terminate it for several other nations, including Afghanistan, Honduras and Nepal have been on hold because of legal challenges.