2026-02-17

CIRCUIT STAY An 18-state attorney general coalition filed an amicus brief in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on February 16, opposing the Trump administration's motion to overturn Judge Reyes's stay blocking Temporary Protected Status termination for approximately 350,000 Haitians. The coalition was co-led by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell and Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown and included California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The brief argues that TPS termination would separate families, damage state economies, deplete workforces, increase healthcare costs, and harm public health and safety. The legal trajectory favors TPS holders as of the February 16 filing date. Judge Reyes issued the original stay on February 2, upheld it against a government challenge on February 12 despite reported threats against the judge, and the 18-state coalition now provides additional appellate weight. Separately, the Ninth Circuit ruled on January 28, 2026, that the Department of Homeland Security lacked statutory authority to vacate prior TPS designations for Haiti and Venezuela, characterizing the terminations as unlawful agency action that must be set aside nationwide. TPS holders currently benefit from two independent legal protections operating in parallel. The economic stakes for Haiti are direct and substantial. Haitian TPS holders represent a major remittance pipeline to a country where 60 percent of the population survives on less than one dollar per day and where humanitarian funding has collapsed to 3.4 percent of required levels. Abrupt TPS termination affecting 350,000 holders would reduce remittance flows at a moment February 17, 2026 when no alternative economic support mechanism exists for the Haitian population. The D.C. Circuit ruling, expected this week, will determine whether the stay survives into the medium term. The political dimension of the TPS battle intersects directly with Haiti governance interests. The Fils-Aime government has not made public statements on the US TPS litigation, but any mass return of Haitian nationals from the United States would compound the displacement crisis -- currently at 1.4 million internally displaced persons -- and strain humanitarian infrastructure already operating at minimal funding levels alongside ongoing gang territorial control of 85 to 90 percent of Port-au-Prince.