On May 1, 2026, US President Donald Trump signed a new executive order expanding sanctions against the Cuban regime.

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Buenos Aires, Argentina – The Supreme Court of the United States heard arguments on Wednesday regarding the Trump administration’s attempts to end Haitians’ Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which defends Haitian migrants from deportations. 

The Supreme Court’s ruling, which is likely to be made in the coming months, could affect around 350,000 Haitians who are currently living in the United States. 

The Department of Homeland Security, then headed by Kristi Noem, justified February’s decision saying that Noem “determined that there are no extraordinary or temporary conditions in Haiti that prevent Haitian nationals […] from returning to safety,” and that “it is contrary to the national interests of the United States to permit Haitian nationals […] to remain.”

Immigrant rights advocates, however, paint a different picture.

Daniel Berlin, policy director for protection pathways at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), told Latin America Reports that “Haiti continues to face a compounding crisis marked by food insecurity, displacement, deadly disease outbreaks, and surging gang violence, making it dangerous for anyone forced to return.” 

“There are groups of people at particularly high risk, notably women and children as gangs increasingly use sexual violence to strike fear in communities and forced child recruitment has risen 200%,” he added.

Haitians were first granted TPS in 2010 following a devastating earthquake and have seen their protections extended multiple times since, including after the assassination of Jovenel Moise, the Caribbean country’s last elected president.

Since Moise’s assassination in 2021, Haiti has suffered from institutional collapse and rife gang violence.

More than 8,100 killings were documented nationwide between January and November last year, whilst up to half of the members making up these deadly armed groups are children, according to the UN.

As a result, the IRC reports that 73% of households feel unsafe where they sleep and 60% of households do not have their children in school due to fears of kidnapping, recruitment, and crossfire.

Berlin warns that “if TPS is ended, the administration could begin the legal process to remove people without other status immediately.” 

The reality on the ground has led the plaintiffs to argue that the Trump administration did not follow due process in evaluating the conditions in Haiti.

The New York Times reported earlier this week that government officials had distorted evidence in order to justify removing Haitians’ TPS. Internal emails show that data that did not support the administration’s argument was removed from research reports. 

Moreover, the lawyers also referenced President Trump’s frequent usage of inflammatory language against Haitian people to contend that the administration was racially motivated in its decision, which would violate the constitutional prohibitions of discriminatory government actions.

Trump has previously described Haitian immigrants as undesirable because they come from a “filthy, dirty, disgusting” country and claimed that they had been eating their neighbors’ pets in Springfield, Ohio. 

Lower court judges who dealt with the case found that Noem’s decisions were in fact predetermined and not informed by meaningful analysis, thus postponing the terminations of Haitians’ TPS. 

The government’s lawyers asked the conservative-dominated Supreme Court to intervene as a result, arguing that the courts have no right to review Noem’s decisionmaking.

In the same session, the Supreme Court also heard arguments regarding the TPS of 6,100 Syrians in the US.

Featured image description: Protest at the US Capitol against the removal of Haitian migrants’ Temporary Protected Status, March 6th 2026.

Featured image credit: @MarioNawfal via X.

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Key Points —President Javier Milei’s approval rating fell to 35.5% in April from 44% in January, while disapproval climbed from 51.6% to 63%, according to AtlasIntel polling for Bloomberg. —Argentine sovereign dollar bonds maturing October 2028 — twelve months after the next presidential election — yield 8.3%, a 360 basis-point premium over comparable bonds maturing […]

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The post Sabesp Hires Bradesco to Prepare R$10 Billion Copasa Bid in Brazil appeared first on The Rio Times.

Key Points —Vale is leading a consortium with Brazilian steelmaker Gerdau to bid for Porto Sudeste, the iron ore export terminal in Itaguaí controlled by Trafigura and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala, in a deal valued near US$5 billion. —The package includes both Porto Sudeste in Sepetiba Bay, Rio de Janeiro, and the Mineração Morro do Ipê […]

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Key Points —Kora Saúde, controlled by US private-equity fund HIG Capital, filed Wednesday night for an out-of-court restructuring covering roughly R$1.3 billion of financial debt at the holding level. —Total net debt closed 2025 at R$2.5 billion, with the gross-debt-to-EBITDA ratio at roughly 8x — pushed up by interest costs after a debt-funded pandemic-era hospital […]

The post Brazil’s Kora Saúde Restructures R$1.3 Billion as Private-Equity Hospitals Crack appeared first on The Rio Times.

Key Points —Brazil’s nominal fiscal deficit reached R$199.6 billion in March 2026, the worst monthly figure since the COVID pandemic and far above the R$148 billion median Bloomberg forecast. —The consolidated public-sector primary deficit hit R$80.7 billion versus a R$3.6 billion surplus in March 2025, and the central government posted R$73.78 billion — the worst […]

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Key Points —Former president Jair Bolsonaro was admitted to DF Star hospital in Brasília on Friday morning for a three-hour rotator cuff repair on his right shoulder, after Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes authorized the procedure on Thursday. —The 71-year-old has been serving 27 years and three months for an attempted coup since November […]

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