On the Tuesday, September 1, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast: In Miami's Little Haiti, the loss of TPS protections has sparked uncertainty that reaches far beyond immigration status. Families are making difficult decisions with some residents reluctant to leave their homes. USA TODAY National Correspondent Chris Kenning joins The Excerpt to discuss his reporting from the neighborhood and the questions many Haitian immigrants are now facing about what's next.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Dana Taylor:
The loss of temporary protected status or TPS for Haitian immigrants in the U.S. has sent a chill through Miami's Little Haiti. The neighborhood has grown quiet since the Trump administration ended protected status for Haitian immigrants beginning August 5th. With few options from which to choose a path forward, what's next for South Florida's Haitian community?
Hello, and welcome to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Tuesday, September 1st, 2026. USA TODAY National Correspondent Chris Kenning visited Little Haiti and joins me to discuss the impact of the loss of temporary deportation protection. Chris, it's always good to have you here.
Chris Kenning:
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Dana Taylor:
Before we talk about what it looks like today, I want to get a picture of what a vibrant Little Haiti looked like prior to the change in TPS. How many people lived there, worked there? What kinds of businesses thrive there?
Chris Kenning:
Little Haiti is a neighborhood in Miami, just north of downtown, and it really grew in the '80s when you had a surge of Haitians fleeing the dictator known as Baby Doc Duvalier. Since then, it's really remained the historic heart of what is now the nation's largest Haitian diaspora, which is kind of spread across South Florida. And in the years since the 2010 earthquake there, some residents have moved to outer areas, but it's really remained a cultural hub, and its Haitian roots are really visible everywhere.
A bookstore owner, for example, who runs a Haitian bookshop that's been there for many years, sits near a Haitian church, near a Haitian restaurant, and there are Haitian murals on the wall. And just down the street, there's an elementary school named after a Haitian leader who helped liberate the island nation. But this bookstore owner told me that since August 5th when temporary protected status was removed, the neighborhood has gone quiet.
Dana Taylor:
Let's dig into how the end of TPS is impacting the local community. You spoke with a Trump voter and local business owner who now regrets his vote.
Chris Kenning:
The end of this status has really disrupted life at almost every level in this area and also for other Haitians that were under it. Florida is home to nearly half of the 330,000 Haitian nationals who had been under the status. And so, it had a big impact in South Florida. There was an estimated, I think, 52,000 Haitian TPS holders who were working in agriculture and restaurants and landscaping, housekeeping. And so, the end of their status means that they lost work authorization, and they are also afraid of being detained and deported.
So that means that businesses are seeing fewer customers, and I spoke to one gentleman who's the owner of Chef Creole, which is a well-known restaurant in Little Haiti, and it has other locations too. He lost 14 staffers who can no longer work, and it really led to him to scramble to keep his restaurants open. And on the customer side, he said that people who lost protections and were depending on those now are kind of afraid to come out, and they don't have the money anymore to dine out. So it's kind of impacting both sides of his business.
Dana Taylor:
Home health services have taken a huge hit in the area. What did you find there?
Chris Kenning:
One of the areas that a lot of Haitian TPS holders worked was in this area. The Home Care Association of Florida told me that two home care agencies in the area decided to close their business entirely when they lost too many employees, including one that was owned by and serving Haitian Americans that lost 85 of 86 employees.
And then the Jewish Community Services of South Florida told me that they had lost 18 Haitian TPS holders who worked there, and some of them had yearslong ties to clients and developed really close relationships, including some of the clients they serve are Holocaust survivors. So that's had a big impact on the lives of some of their people they serve.
Dana Taylor:
It's not only restaurants, bookstores, and other local businesses that are seeing the impacts. Churches are also empty. Tell me about Father Reginald Jean-Mary and what he shared with you about the churchgoing community in Miami's Little Haiti.
Chris Kenning:
Yeah. Father Jean-Mary has led the Notre-Dame d'Haiti for 25 years, and this is a real community hub where people of Haitian descent come from all over, including from North Miami and other places, to what is really a neighborhood institution, and he said he's seen a drop-off in parishioners coming for services and also students in their adult education school.
It's a function of people being afraid to just be out and about. He's been a pretty vocal opponent of the TPS rollback, and he said deporting people to Haiti at this time is unjust and immoral. And he tries to tell his parishioners, he told me, those that do make it, to try to maintain hope that things will change for the better.
Dana Taylor:
I want to stick with the fear and anxiety many are dealing with. The U.S. State Department has issued a do-not-travel advisory for Haiti. So what would those who return to Haiti, either deported or self-deported, likely be facing there?
Chris Kenning:
Returning to Haiti is not an easy answer, because it does remain dangerous and unstable. TPS for Haitians has been renewed ever since the 2010 earthquake, which was devastating to the country. But a lot of people say that things there have only gotten worse since then. In 2021, you had a presidential assassination. And since then, the government collapsed, and gang warfare has spread. And today, rival gangs still control large parts of the capital of Port-au-Prince.
They operate roadblocks on a lot of the major highways. There's a lot of joblessness and internal displacement of people who have had to flee their homes because of this violence. And just recently, we saw at least 47 people killed and dozens kidnapped when armed men attacked a community outside of Port-au-Prince that had previously been relatively safe. So there are some that are planning to try and go back, but advocates tell me that's a small percentage.
Dana Taylor:
What are the options for those who no longer have TPS status? Are there other countries they can immigrate to?
Chris Kenning:
A lot of the families I talked to kind of described what they framed as an impossible choice. Staying means risking being deported, possibly separated from children or losing homes or businesses they've built up over the years. But finding refuge in another country like Canada or Australia or Europe, that comes with its own challenges, because getting permission to live in those countries is not easy. One woman, for example, is a nurse who is going through a court battle over child custody with her son's father, and she can't leave with her son, but she's at the same time unable to work and pay bills. So she's really feeling stuck.
Dana Taylor:
As you noted in your story, the Department of Homeland Security has declined to say whether those who've lost their temporary protected status are being targeted by ICE. People are afraid to leave their homes though, aren't they?
Chris Kenning:
Yeah. The unknowns that are facing this community are pretty intense. Some said they were just staying inside. Others told me they were even afraid to take their kids to school or leave the house to go see a doctor. We haven't seen any big, Minnesota-style ICE immigration operations there, but advocates have told me that former TPS holders are being picked up in traffic stops and in other ways in smaller numbers.
And so, that's caused people to worry. In July, the Miami Herald had reported that U.S. officials had warned the Haitian government to expect at least two weekly flights carrying around 200 people after TPS protections have ended. So that's on everyone's mind.
Dana Taylor:
I want to go back to something you just mentioned, that there are parents facing the possibility of being separated from their children, some of whom were born here and are U.S. citizens. You wrote about parents who are fearful of sending their children to school. Tell me more about that.
Chris Kenning:
I spoke with a woman named Natacha, who didn't want her last name used, because she's afraid of being targeted for deportation, but she's a great example. She's a 44-year-old mother who lives in North Miami. And like a lot of other people, she has children that are U.S. citizens that were born here, but she's afraid of being separated from them, and one of her kids has Down syndrome. So she wants to make sure she can take care of them.
So as a result, she's been staying home, barely leaving the house, and in mid-August was the first day of school for their area, and she had planned to obviously send her kids to school, but when the first day came around, her husband convinced her to keep the kids at home, because they worried that it might be a trap to arrest them.
Dana Taylor:
Chris, if we take a step back and look at what TPS is, who it's for, was there a fundamental misunderstanding by those formerly protected by it about its limitations?
Chris Kenning:
Temporary protected status is just that temporary, and that's the point that the Trump administration has made, that it was never meant to be a semipermanent status. It has been repeatedly extended, because this is because of the situation in Haiti, and the status is meant for folks who cannot be sent back home because of war or conflict or a natural disaster. It's too dangerous, too unsafe.
But the administration argues that this status for Haitians specifically has been in place for a pretty long time since 2010, and that it shouldn't just continue. But the problem for many Haitian folks who are under that status is, over that time, they'd settled into lives, going to school, becoming professionals, having families, creating businesses, and now they just don't know what to do.
Dana Taylor:
Despite the severe challenges faced by the local community, Little Haiti is not entirely without hope. What do some of the people there share with you?
Chris Kenning:
One voice that really stood out to me on this question was a Miami-born comedian named Chris Renois, and his parents first lived in Little Haiti when they came to the U.S., and it's really been an important part of their family roots in South Florida. He's performed in the area, and he acted in a film about the changing neighborhood, because rising housing prices and gentrification have pushed out growing numbers of folks who originally had lived there.
And he wondered whether the loss of TPS and how it's roiling their community in the wider South Florida, Haitian diaspora, will further hollow out the neighborhood's culture. But he said that it remains a really close-knit community and that people are looking out for each other and offering mutual support, and his takeaway was that folks from Haiti have weathered a lot of storms, and they'll survive this one as well.
Dana Taylor:
Chris Kenning is a national correspondent for USA TODAY. As always, great reporting. Thank you so much, Chris.
Chris Kenning:
Thank you.
Dana Taylor:
Our stories come from USA TODAY journalists across the country. I'll be back tomorrow with a deeper look into another story that matters. I'm Dana Taylor. Thanks for listening.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: TPS is over. What's next for Miami's Little Haiti? | The Excerpt
