The Honorable John Thune
Majority Leader
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Chuck Schumer
Democratic Leader
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Leader Thune, Leader Schumer, and Members of the United States Senate:
On behalf of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition (EWIC), we write to urge the Senate to take up and pass H.R. 1689, the bipartisan legislation passed by the House of Representatives on April 16, 2026, directing the Department of Homeland Security to designate Haiti for Temporary Protected Status (TPS). EWIC is a broad-based coalition of national businesses and trade associations from across the industry spectrum concerned with the shortage of essential workers and committed to immigration policies that sustain the American workforce while strengthening our economy and national security. The roughly 330,000 to 350,000 Haitian nationals who have lived and worked lawfully in the United States under TPS are precisely the essential workers our members rely on, and we believe Congress should act to preserve their ability to remain and continue legally contributing to our communities and our economy.
The need for legislative action has become urgent. On June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States, in a 6-3 decision, permitted the Administration to proceed with terminating TPS for Haitian and Syrian nationals (while litigation continues). The Court’s order resolved an
emergency procedural question and left these workers without the interim protection that lower courts had granted; it did not address the underlying policy question of whether forcing the return of hundreds of thousands of long-settled workers serves the national interest. That question belongs to Congress, and Congress has already begun to answer it. The House passed H.R. 1689 by a bipartisan vote of 224 to 204, with members of both parties recognizing that ending these protections would inflict serious harm on Haitian families, on the employers who depend on them, and on the broader economy. We respectfully urge the Senate to complete that work.
The stakes for American employers are real and immediate. Haitian TPS holders are deeply woven into sectors already facing chronic labor shortages, including health care, long-term and direct care for our aging population, hospitality, food production, construction, and manufacturing. These are lawful, tax-paying workers who have built their lives here over years and, in many cases, more than a decade. Stripping them of work authorization would not open these jobs to U.S. workers who are not available to fill them; it would instead remove experienced, trained employees from payrolls across the country, disrupt the delivery of essential services to seniors and patients, and compound the workforce gaps that EWIC’s members have documented for years. The economic cost of mass disruption to this workforce would be borne by businesses, consumers, and communities in every region of the country.
EWIC also recognizes that the conditions that gave rise to Haiti’s TPS designation have not abated. Haiti continues to confront pervasive gang violence, political instability, displacement, and a humanitarian emergency that has overwhelmed its health and security infrastructure. Returning workers to those conditions while they are needed and productive here serves neither humanitarian nor economic interests. Preserving TPS for Haiti is consistent with the principle EWIC has championed since 1999: that our immigration laws should be calibrated to the real workforce needs of the American economy and should provide certainty and stability for workers and the employers who depend on them.
For these reasons, EWIC respectfully urges the Senate to take up and pass H.R. 1689 without delay, and to provide the certainty that Haitian essential workers, their families, and their employers urgently need. We stand ready to work with members on both sides of the aisle to advance this legislation and to pursue the broader, lasting workforce solutions our economy requires
Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
Respectfully,
The Essential Worker Immigration Coalition (EWIC)