House passes bill to preserve deportation protections for Haitians

The House passed legislation Thursday that would force the Trump administration to extend temporary deportation protections for Haitian nationals, delivering a rare bipartisan rebuke of the president's immigration policies on a signature issue.

The bill passed 224 to 204, with support from all Democrats and seven Republicans who broke ranks with GOP leadership. The measure would preserve Temporary Protected Status, or T.P.S., for more than 350,000 Haitians who are currently allowed to live and work legally in the United States under the program.

The Trump administration terminated the deportation protections for Haitians last year. The House bill seeks to reverse that decision and require the administration to extend the protections.

Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts spearheaded the effort to force a vote using a discharge petition, a procedural tool that allows lawmakers to bypass leadership and bring a measure directly to the House floor. The petition reached the required 218 signatures in late March, enabling the bill to proceed.

Four Republicans initially signed the discharge petition: Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Mike Lawler of New York and Don Bacon of Nebraska. In a procedural vote Wednesday, three additional Republicans — Reps. Nicole Malliotakis of New York, Carlos Gimenez of Florida and Kevin Kiley of California — supported allowing the bill to advance to the House floor.

The discharge petition tool has seen increasing success under the fractured House Republican majority, allowing minority factions to circumvent leadership control over the legislative agenda.

The bill's passage is largely symbolic, as President Trump is all but certain to veto the legislation. The vote nonetheless represents an election-year challenge to the president from members of his own party on immigration policy.