FORT LAUDERDALE- The end of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians is no longer an abstract immigration-policy debate in South Florida. At Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, it has already translated into lost jobs for workers whose duties directly shape the experience of millions of travelers passing through the region.
As of July 27, 132 employees working at FLL held Haiti's TPS designation, airport spokesperson Arlene Satchell told the Miami Herald. The workers were employed by private vendors with contracts at the Broward County-owned airport, rather than directly by the county. At least 50 workers represented by 32BJ SEIU have since lost their jobs, according to the union.
The workers held positions ranging from cleaning terminals to assisting passengers, jobs that are easy to overlook but difficult for a busy airport to operate without. Before TPS expired, the Miami Herald reported that Haitian and other TPS workers at FLL were cleaning terminals, transporting passengers with disabilities and staffing airport stores and restaurants. More than 32 million passengers traveled through FLL last year.
Aldo Muirragui, Florida airports field coordinator for 32BJ SEIU, told the Herald that Haitian TPS holders at FLL worked in a variety of roles, many of them involving direct interaction with travelers.
That makes Fort Lauderdale's airport one of the clearest early examples of how the termination of Haitian TPS is moving beyond immigration enforcement and into South Florida's tourism economy.
FLL offers a glimpse of a much larger workforce problem
Florida is home to approximately 158,000 Haitian TPS holders, and about 93,000 of them were part of the state's workforce before the protections ended, according to estimates cited by Axios.
Those estimates come from an analysis of Census Bureau data by immigration demographer Phillip Connor for FWD.us, the Haitian Bridge Alliance and UndocuBlack Network. The analysis relies on the Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey and uses an estimated TPS population from early 2025, before the Trump administration began terminating designations. That means the figures should be viewed as estimates of the population potentially affected rather than a real-time count of workers who lost authorization in July.
Nationally, FWD.us estimates that about 200,000 Haitian TPS holders were in the U.S. workforce before termination. They generated an estimated $5.9 billion in economic activity annually and paid roughly $1.56 billion in federal, payroll, state and local taxes. The group identified significant numbers working in food service, transportation, health care, agriculture and caregiving.
South Florida is particularly vulnerable because it combines one of the nation's largest Haitian populations with an economy heavily dependent on tourism and service work.
The effect is becoming visible at precisely the places visitors encounter first.
Airports need cabin and terminal cleaners, wheelchair attendants, baggage and passenger-service workers, restaurant employees and retail staff. Hotels require housekeepers, kitchen workers and maintenance employees. Restaurants depend on cooks, dishwashers and bussers.
When employees suddenly lose federal work authorization, employers cannot simply keep them on the payroll.
Restaurants are losing workers too
The same problem has surfaced farther south in the Florida Keys.
At Half Shell Raw Bar in Key West, general manager Bobby Kuchinsky suspended six longtime Haitian employees after checking a federal government system and finding that their work permits were no longer valid, the Associated Press reported. The employees had worked as cooks, busboys and oyster shuckers, some after spending more than a decade in the United States.
Kuchinsky chose suspension instead of immediately firing the workers in case their authorization was restored. But the immediate operational effect was the same: six experienced employees could no longer work.
The restaurant is not alone. Human resources specialists told AP that employers in hospitality, construction and long-term care have struggled to keep up with repeated changes to TPS deadlines and work authorization requirements.
That disruption was exactly what Florida's hospitality industry warned Washington about before TPS ended.
The Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, along with the National Restaurant Association and hospitality groups from 11 other states, asked the federal government for a 90-to-120-day transition period. The organizations warned that many TPS recipients were longtime employees who were central to restaurant operations and that losing them could remove a significant part of the workforce in heavily affected communities virtually overnight.
FRLA said more than 93,000 TPS holders were working in Florida and estimated their overall contribution to the state's economy at $2.6 billion annually.
