The announcement, by the Department of Homeland Security, continues the administration's campaign of revoking special protections afforded to migrants from some of the most unstable and desperate places in the world. Hundreds of thousands of other immigrants who had previously been authorized to remain in the country, including Afghans, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, could face deportation.
Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, had foreshadowed that Haiti would be on the list, signing a decision in February revoking an extension of the protection, called Temporary Protected Status, for hundreds of thousands of Haitians.
The publication of a notice in the federal register, dated Friday, set the plan in action and underscored the threat of deportation for more than 300,000 Haitians who have been protected under the program. The department said the program would expire on Sept. 2, although the administration's plan may face challenges in court.
The Obama administration first granted the immigration status to Haitians in the United States in 2010, after a catastrophic earthquake rocked the island nation. The program has been repeatedly extended in the years since; an attempt in 2019 by the first Trump administration to end it was blocked by legal challenges.
Republicans have argued that the protections for migrants from unstable places have strayed far from their original mission of providing temporary shelter from conflict or disaster. In its statement on Friday, the department said the termination of the program for Haitians "restores integrity in our immigration system and ensures that Temporary Protective Status is actually temporary."
Immigrants' advocates scoffed at the justification the department offered in its statement: The "environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home."
Haiti is an impoverished country that has been under a state of emergency since last year after its collapse into criminal anarchy. It is overrun by gangs and wracked with corruption. The State Department places Haiti at the highest threat level in its travel advisory database, citing widespread violent crime and advising Americans not to visit.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, an immigrant rights group, said on social media: "This is NOT a safe place to send people. It's a death sentence."
The Department of Homeland Security said Haitians could pursue legal status through other routes.
Setareh Ghandehari, an advocacy director at the immigrant rights group Detention Watch Network, said it was "a slap in the face to tell people who currently have legal status" to pursue another form of legal status.
"Those options are almost nonexistent," she added.
Guerline Jozef, the executive director of the advocacy group the Haitian Bridge Alliance, said the news had left Haitians in the United States shocked. "This announcement has created mass fear," she said.
The Department of Homeland Security urged Haitians to use a Customs and Border Protection mobile application, called CBP Home, to help arrange their voluntary deportation. The public notice released by the department also cited a sharp increase in recent years in the number of Haitians trying to enter the United States.
Since returning to office on a pledge to conduct the largest deportation program in U.S. history, President Trump has paused a program granting legal status to some Ukrainians who fled after Russia's invasion and revoked protections for Afghan citizens who supported the U.S. war effort in their home country.
He also ended a Biden-era program that allowed hundreds of thousands of people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to fly to the United States and quickly secure work authorization if they passed security checks and had a financial sponsor. More than 500,000 migrants entered the United States through that initiative.
During his campaign for president last year, Mr. Trump focused heavily on threats that he said some Haitians in the United States posed to communities. In a debate in September, he baselessly claimed that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, had taken and eaten their neighbors' dogs and cats.
The outlandish claim caused a national stir and pushed officials in Springfield, which has had an influx of Haitian immigrants, to say that there were no credible reports that immigrants had harmed any pets in the city.