Haitian Community in Maryland Faces Hardship After TPS Ends

The U.S. government’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians has left the Haitian community on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in crisis. Roughly 350,000 Haitians who have lived and worked legally in the United States, many as farmworkers, caregivers and poultry‑plant employees, now risk arrest and deportation.

At the Word of Life Center in Salisbury, attendance at the Sunday service fell by more than half after the TPS expiration, with pastor Roosevelt Toussaint urging congregants to persevere. He appealed directly to President Donald Trump, saying the community has done nothing wrong and that deportation could be a death sentence. The loss of TPS has forced families to choose between seeking underground work in the U.S. under constant ICE threat or returning to Haiti, a country plagued by gang violence and poverty.