Supporters of the Trump administration’s decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status will quickly remind you that TPS was always meant to be temporary. They’re right; it says it right in the name of the program. But does that mean Haiti’s TPS designation should have been revoked in July, making some 350,000 people vulnerable to deportation?

For anyone who’s been following the lawlessness and violence that’s taken over Haiti since its president was assassinated in 2021, the answer is an obvious no, making the revocation an especially cruel part of President Trump’s mass deportation agenda. Three Miami Republican lawmakers understood that when they supported a U.S. House measure in April to extend Haiti’s TPS designation through 2029.

Now it’s up to Florida’s Republican Sens. Ashley Moody and Rick Scott to do their part after a similar measure failed in the U.S. Senate last month when a Missouri Republican senator blocked a motion to fast track it to a vote on the floor. The Democratic sponsors have vowed to keep pushing their bill and immigration advocates are calling on Moody and Scott to support it.

So what are the Republican senators’ plans to help the hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in South Florida — people working in industries that are crucial to our economy, such as health and elderly care?

So far, they’ve offered a lot of words but few specifics.

The Herald Editorial Board reached out to their offices asking whether they support the Senate legislation filed by Democrats. Moody’s spokesperson directed us to comments the former Florida attorney general gave to Local 10. In an Aug. 27 news segment, Moody told a reporter that TPS needs to be scaled back but “we’ve got to start looking at these in a case-by-case basis, so I’ve been meeting with the administration talking about alternative routes.”

Scott’s office directed us to an interview he gave ABC News last week, in which he said TPS “was always a temporary program, so we’ve got to come up with: How do we fix the immigration system so people, we know, are vetted?” He said he’s “absolutely” concerned about Haitians’ safety if they have to return to their country and that, “We’ve got to come up with a way so that they can continue to thrive here.”

Those are nice words. No doubt the U.S. desperately needs, as Scott said, to “fix our whole immigration system” with comprehensive reform that tackles everything from work visas to undocumented immigrants and TPS holders. But Congress has attempted to pass reform for decades and failed to reach a consensus. Haitians — as Scott clearly acknowledges — don’t have the luxury to wait. Just being concerned about them doesn’t cut it.

A bipartisan congressional delegation that visited Port-au-Prince recently saw the real conditions in Haiti, despite the Trump administration’s assertion, when TPS was cancelled, that they have improved.

“The conditions we saw on the ground were pretty horrific,” U.S. Rep. Ami Bera, D-California, told the Miami Herald.

During the visit, at least three senior Haiti government officials were victims of gang kidnappings. A 6-year-old U.S. citizen had been in captivity for 46 days despite several ransom payments. Haitians who are deported could easily become the targets of this type of criminal activity.

Haiti has no fully functioning government, its capital is largely controlled by gangs and the United Nations issued a warning late last month about a surge in women and girls being raped, often by armed groups. In the first half of 2026, there were 5,500 cases of gender-based violence in the country, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“This is not the right time to be sending people back to Haiti,” Bera concluded.

Congressional Republicans may dismiss Bera’s comments as a typical open-borders, liberal plea, but TPS has bipartisan support, as became evident when Miami GOP U.S. Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar, Carlos Giménez and Mario Diaz-Balart voted to extend it.

Scott told ABC News that, “We’ve got a lot of wonderful Haitians in my state. I’ve always supported them.” More words — but where is the action? Haitians are facing deportation under conditions that no humane person would consider reasonable.

We can only hope that Moody’s talk with the Trump White House about finding “alternative routes” for Haitians is serious and pays off. Scott is a top ally of Trump in the U.S. Senate and Moody, who is running for election, is endorsed by the president.

The voice of Florida’s senators matters for their constituents on this issue. They should start using it more.

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