10 House Republicans Side with Democrats in Bid to Block Trump from Deporting Haitian Immigrants
House Democrats managed to pass a bill on Thursday to poke President Donald Trump in the eye over immigration enforcement — and they had double-digit help from Republicans to do it.
Ten Republicans bucked their party and their president while voting to keep temporary protected status in place for more than 300,000 Haitians living in the United States, according to NBC News.
The vote was largely symbolic, but there were still fireworks on the House floor.
BREAKING: The House just voted 224 to 204 to PASS a 3 year extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 350,000 Haitians living in the U.S.
10 House Republicans + 1 independent voted w/ Dems to pass it.
Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL)
Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE)
Rep. Brian…— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) April 16, 2026
Republicans who crossed party lines to approve the measure included Reps. María Elvira Salazar, Carlos A. Gimenez and Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida; Rich McCormick of Georgia; Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania; Don Bacon of Nebraska; Mike Lawler and Nicole Malliotakis of New York; and Mike Carey and Mike Turner of Ohio.
The measure was passed in the form of a “discharge petition,” which allows a bill to get to the floor even if it’s bottled up in committee or opposed by the House leadership.
In one explosive moment during debate, Florida Rep. Randy Fine, a Republican, blasted the “temporary protected status” concept — noting that there doesn’t seem to be much that’s “temporary” about it.
What began during President Barack Obama’s administration as a humanitarian gesture for illegal immigrants from Haiti in the wake of the Caribbean country’s devastating 2010 earthquake has become a seemingly fixed feature of American life, he said.
“This whole thing is a scam,” he said, according to NBC News.
“I did not come here to protect Haitians. I came to protect for the good of our country and the only discharge petition I will support is the one that discharges all of these people back to Haiti.”
Those deportations could still be in the cards. The bill passed in the House on Thursday faces an uncertain future in the Republican-controlled Senate. And even if it were to pass both chambers of Congress, the chance of Trump signing it is virtually zero.
It was Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, after all, that ended the temporary protected status last year. The administration was blocked in February from going ahead with deportations, as Reuters reported at the time, by a federal judge who blamed “hostility to nonwhite immigrants” for the effort.
Symbolic as the Thursday vote might have been, reaction on the social media platform X was swift and fiery.
Primary and fire every member of the House thar voted with the satan̈istic Democrats. This is insanity🚫⚠️😡
— S. Carlin (@carlin_sus46010) April 16, 2026
Everyone of these Republicans needs to be primaried. Once they get to DC, they forget it’s us that pay their salaries. They work for us, not their corporate overloads. And they wonder why we lose seats in the House & Senate. So far out of touch with reality.
— moxie (@LeahElsie4) April 16, 2026
Do these idiots not even understand what “temporary” means? ALL of them should be ashamed and replaced in the next election
— DKvam (@DaveKvam) April 16, 2026
Totally sickening! Trump must veto it. We must replace these 10 republicans who have betrayed us!
— michael holcombe (@mgholcombe1976) April 16, 2026
“Totally sickening!” one X user wrote, capturing the mood of the vast majority of those commenting. “Trump must veto it. We must replace these 10 republicans who have betrayed us!”
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