Keystone Today

Presidential candidate Donald Trump said that, if elected, he would revoke the special status granted to Haitian illegal aliens living in towns like Charleroi and return them to their country.

Trump made the statement in an interview with News Nation on Wednesday, Oct. 2.

In response to a question about 20,000 illegal alien Haitians transported to live in Springfield, Ohio, who have been given the same special status as those in Charleroi, Trump said he would cut off U.S. taxpayer assistance and send them back to Haiti.

“Springfield is such a beautiful place. Have you seen what's happened to it? It's been overrun. You cannot do that to people, Trump said. "They have to be removed.”

Reporter Ali Bradley asked Trump whether that meant he would “revoke their (special) temporary protected status.”

“Absolutely I'd revoke it,” Trump said. “And I'd bring them back to their country.”

Created by the U.S. Congress in 1990, “Temporary Protected Status (TPS)” was intended to be a temporary status allowing immigrants from countries at war or facing "extraordinary" conditions," according to the American Immigration Council (AIC). Status is granted at the discretion of the Secretary of Homeland Security, currently Alejandro Mayorkas.

As of March 31, 2024, there were approximately 863,880 people with special TPS living in the United States, along with 486,418 applications pending at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), according to AIC.

TPS is supposed to last for a maximum of 18 months. But Haitians have been granted TPS for 14 years, starting in 2010, under former President Barack Obama.

More than 300,000 Haitians have been brought to live in the United States under TPS, their expenses funded by U.S. taxpayers, as reported by AP News. The Biden/Harris administration expanded the program after former President Donald Trump tried to revoke it, but was stalled by court challenges.

Under TPS, more than 2,000 Haitians have been brought to live in Charleroi, population 4,000, since 2021. Journalist Nate Hochman reported that “none of the natives know how the migrants are getting there. The streets of the town are now busy with dozens of vans—marked with the logos of shadowy ‘staffing companies,’ without websites and registered to dilapidated properties in town—primarily transporting Haitian migrants.”