Last month, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Mullin v. Doe, permitting the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and stripping more than 300,000 Haitians of legal status. Migration experts met the decision with dismay, noting that the Court sanitized racialized language and gave the administration sweeping, unreviewable power to end TPS. The Court’s description of the TPS statute emphasizes that it was written to provide “short-term humanitarian relief.” The Court observes that “the statute requires the Government to terminate a country’s TPS designation if the Secretary determines that the country ‘no longer continues to meet the conditions for designation,’” and holds that the Secretary’s decision is unreviewable by the judiciary. While the Court’s decision abruptly renders hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the US – many of them long-term residents – vulnerable to detention and deportation, it sheds light on the need for more permanent, better-tailored protections designed for the realities of climate displacement.

TPS has been a stopgap for Haitians in the US, offering vital protection when there were few other options. But Haiti is one of the most severely climate-affected countries in the region and is exceptionally vulnerable to climate-related risks, with increasing frequency and severity of hurricanes, floods, and more. These problems are likely to be permanent, not temporary. Although political instability and violence drive much of the displacement, climate change is a compounding factor. One estimate places the number of climate-displaced Haitians (within Haiti and abroad) as above 700,000. The World Bank observes that at least 68% of the country faces three or more climate hazards, whereas only 9% of households have an emergency plan, whilst the UN Refugee Agency notes that sustainable return or relocation within the country are real challenges for those displaced for any reason. As climate displacement builds, people will need permanent solutions.

But climate displacement from Haiti doesn’t map well onto any of the grounds in the TPS statute. Congress created TPS in 1990 for people who cannot safely return home for a temporary period. The statute specifies three grounds under which return would be dangerous and people should receive temporary protection: first, an “ongoing armed conflict within the state”; second, an “environmental disaster” resulting in “a substantial, but temporary, disruption of living conditions”; and third, “extraordinary and temporary conditions” that prevent nationals from returning in safety. None of this covers permanent climate displacement.

Haitians in the US were first protected under TPS after an earthquake and ensuing cholera outbreak in January 2010; the US government then extended or re-designated Haitian TPS more than a dozen times. However, these designations only applied to people already in the US as opposed to creating legal pathways for others to come. Secretary Noem issued a notice of termination for Haitian TPS in July 2025, which was challenged in court, leading to the Doe decision. Secretary Noem’s abrupt upending of protection for hundreds of thousands of people while calling them “killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies,” is reprehensible, but TPS is nonetheless not the best vehicle for climate displacement.

For climate-displaced people – especially those from small countries like Haiti with few possibilities for internal relocation – we need permanent, well-tailored legal pathways. As Karen Baker explores in her forthcoming chapter, Haitian Women in Cross-Border Climate Displacement, good models for transnational, climate-related movement do exist in the Americas. For instance, Baker profiles the CARICOM Free Movement Agreement, which allows climate-affected Caribbean nationals to move to other countries, though noting Haiti’s exclusion from that model. Likewise, the 1984 Cartagena Declaration’s expanded refugee definition has relevance to climate and has been used by Mexico to provide asylum for some Haitians. And, though not yet implemented at scale, Argentina has created a humanitarian visa for Latin American and Caribbean nationals affected by sudden disasters.

Despite these encouraging regional models, the Doe ruling and the country’s current broader approach to climate change and migration suggest that immediate progress in the US is unlikely. But climate displacement will only grow over coming decades, with continuing pressure on US borders. In the longer term, countries like the US – who helped create the climate crisis itself – simply must develop responses to the realities of Haiti and other small, climate-affected states. The demise of TPS may create space for advocates to push for longer-term protective pathways, following the models developed throughout the region.