Garden City Democrat Laura Gillen sat down with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Haitian community leaders at a cafe in Elmont last week, pushing a bill that would extend temporary protected status for Haitian immigrants through 2029.
The meeting came just before the legislation cleared a procedural vote Wednesday and headed toward a full House vote Thursday. Gillen sponsored the bill, which first appeared in early 2025 and originally proposed an 18-month extension before being revised to lock in protections through 2029.
The stakes are real for Nassau County. Elmont’s 11003 zip code has the highest concentration of residents with Haitian ancestry in the county, according to American Community Survey data. Sections of Valley Stream, Baldwin, Hempstead, and Freeport follow with some of the next-largest Haitian-ancestry populations on Long Island.
More than 350,000 Haitian nationals living in the U.S. currently face the threat of losing their temporary protected status, according to U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts), who spoke at a press conference alongside Gillen.
The threat isn’t hypothetical.
“The current Administration has continuously threatened our Haitian neighbors’ lives by attempting to end their TPS status,” Gillen said at the Elmont meeting. “This is an important milestone in safeguarding hardworking, taxpaying, law-abiding members of our communities who came to the U.S. seeking safety. Ending this protected status is tantamount to a death sentence for Haitian families who would be sent back to Haiti.”
Pressley echoed that language at a separate press conference, where she was joined by Gillen, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (D-Massachusetts), and Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-New York). The presence of Lawler matters: Jeffries acknowledged at the Elmont event that Democrats’ minority position in the House makes passing bills genuinely hard, but he said four Republicans crossed the aisle to back the legislation.
“House Democrats are fighting on multiple fronts on behalf of our Haitian brothers and sisters, and I’m confident that we’re going to get something done to restore and extend TPS protections,” Jeffries said, as reported by Long Island Press.
That bipartisan support is the unusual piece here. Getting Republicans to break with the current administration’s immigration posture isn’t common. Four crossing over on a Haitian TPS bill, in this political climate, is a number worth watching.
State Assembly Member Michaelle Solages (D-Elmont) also weighed in. She represents a district where this bill hits close to home, and she didn’t soften her message.
“As a Haitian-American and a fellow legislator, I stand with my colleagues in Congress to urge the immediate passage of this legislation,” Solages said in a release from Gillen’s office, “and I pledge to continue to stand against bullies and tyrants on behalf of the marginalized.”
Pressley described deportation to Haiti right now as a death sentence, a phrase Gillen has also used. Haiti has faced catastrophic gang violence and institutional collapse since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Sending people back into that situation is what TPS was designed to prevent. The status was created precisely for countries experiencing exactly this kind of ongoing crisis.
The Elmont cafe meeting wasn’t just symbolic. It put national Democratic leadership directly in one of the most Haitian-American communities in Nassau County, on the eve of a vote that could determine whether more than 350,000 people stay or go. Jeffries showing up in Elmont, rather than making a statement from Washington, signals how seriously House Democrats are treating this push. Gillen, who represents a swing district in Nassau County and has staked out a visible role on this issue since sponsoring the bill last year, clearly wanted that visibility on her home turf.
For Long Islanders who want to understand the federal temporary protected status program, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website lays out how the designation works and which countries currently qualify.
Whether four Republican votes are enough to move the bill through the full House is the open question heading into Thursday’s vote. What isn’t in question: the families in Elmont, Valley Stream, and Hempstead who’ve been waiting on that answer for months.