Ten House Republicans broke with their party Thursday and voted alongside Democrats to pass a bill extending Temporary Protected Status for roughly 350,000 Haitian migrants, just days after a Haitian illegal immigrant was arrested for beating a woman to death with a hammer at a Florida gas station.
The measure passed the House 220-207, marking what multiple outlets described as the first time the Republican-controlled Congress voted against a Trump administration immigration policy. The bill would extend TPS protections for Haitians through 2029, shielding them from deportation and preserving their work authorization.
The vote landed less than two weeks after Rolbert Joachin, a Haitian illegal immigrant, fatally attacked a woman at a Fort Myers gas station on April 3, repeatedly striking her in the head with a hammer, according to a Department of Homeland Security press release. DHS said ICE assisted local police in tracking down and arresting Joachin.
That timeline, a brutal killing followed almost immediately by a bipartisan vote to keep hundreds of thousands of Haitian nationals in the country, drew furious responses from conservative lawmakers and at least one administration official.
The bill reached the floor through a discharge petition, a procedural maneuver that bypasses leadership and forces a vote when enough members sign on. Rep. Ayanna Pressley led the petition effort. Breitbart reported that the petition succeeded with bipartisan support, and ten Republicans ultimately voted for the final bill.
Before the final vote, seven Republican defectors joined House Democrats to adopt a resolution bringing the bill to the floor. Rep. Mike Lawler of New York posted on X that he was proud to join the effort alongside Pressley, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, and Rep. Gillen.
Newsmax identified six of the Republicans who voted to advance the measure: Lawler, Maria Elvira Salazar, Carlos Gimenez, Brian Fitzpatrick, Don Bacon, and Nicole Malliotakis. This is not the first time some of those names have appeared on the wrong side of their party's immigration priorities. Nineteen House Republicans previously signed on to Salazar's amnesty bill for millions of illegal immigrants, drawing sharp criticism from the conservative base.
Lawler defended his vote by pointing to the demographics of his district. He told Newsmax he has "one of the largest Haitian populations in the country" in his district and warned that ending TPS protections without addressing work authorization "will cause a huge crisis in our healthcare system, especially in an area like mine, where a lot of our Haitian TPS holders are nurses."
Pressley framed the vote differently, calling it "a critical step forward in our fight for immigrant justice and delivering our Haitian neighbors the protections they deserve."
GOP Texas Rep. Brandon Gill, a vocal critic of the Republican-backed DIGNIDAD Act, issued a statement to the Daily Caller condemning the vote in plain terms:
"The American people resoundingly reject mass migration, and it's time for Congress to listen to them. We must reject any form of amnesty. If we reward illegal immigration, we only incentivize more illegal immigration. It's time for Congress to put our people first."
Republican Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles was sharper. He called TPS for Haitians "a national betrayal" and told the Daily Caller he would spend every day of his career in Congress opposing what he sees as amnesty by another name:
"I will never be an amnesty Republican, and I will spend every day of my career in Congress destroying their aims to crush our sovereignty."
Fellow Tennessee Republican Tim Burchett suggested the defecting members were motivated by constituent politics or ideology. He told the Daily Caller he believes some members "probably have some Haitians in your district that vote" and that others are "just of the liberal mindset."
The pattern of Republican defections on key votes has become a recurring headache for party leadership. Dozens of House Republicans have broken rank to side with Democrats on various issues in recent sessions, raising questions about whether GOP leaders can hold their slim majority together on the issues that matter most to their voters.
Perhaps the sharpest reaction came from an unnamed administration official, who connected the vote directly to the Fort Myers killing. The official told the Daily Caller:
"Six days ago, a Haitian man beat a woman to death with a hammer. Yesterday, a Republican majority Congress voted to keep 350K Haitians here, an average of 18 per city. The blood from this woman's skull had barely dried in the cracks of the Florida pavement before pro-amnesty republicans began marching over her grave in an effort to keep these 'doctors and lawyers' in our streets."
The Daily Caller reached out to Florida Reps. Greg Steube and Byron Donalds for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Thursday's vote did not happen in a vacuum. The Trump administration moved in late 2025 to terminate Haiti's Temporary Protected Status designation, setting a February 3 end date. A federal district court in Washington, D.C., blocked that termination in early February 2026, finding it likely unlawful. The D.C. Circuit later upheld the injunction.
The Supreme Court then granted expedited review. Oral arguments in the case, Trump v. Miot, consolidated with the related Syria TPS case Mullin v. Doe, are scheduled for April 29, the last day of the Court's April argument session. Until the Court rules, the lower court's stay remains in effect, and Haitian TPS protections, including work authorization, continue.
That means the House vote, while symbolically significant, may have limited immediate legal effect. The bill still faces long odds in the Senate and a near-certain presidential veto. Just the News described the vote as "a notable rebellion from moderate Republicans against the Trump administration's immigration policy", an accurate label, even if the rebellion leads nowhere legislatively.
But the damage is political, not legal. Ten members of a Republican majority, elected in part on promises to secure the border and enforce immigration law, handed Democrats a messaging victory on one of the most emotionally charged immigration debates in the country. They did it days after a killing that put Haitian TPS holders back in the national spotlight for the worst possible reasons.
The 220-207 margin tells the story. Republicans hold the House, but they cannot hold their own members on immigration, the issue their voters care about most. The discharge petition succeeded because enough Republicans signed it to bypass leadership entirely.
This is not an isolated problem. House Republicans have revolted on FISA reauthorization, putting the Speaker's grip on power to the test. They have split on spending bills. And now they have split on whether 350,000 Haitian migrants should remain shielded from deportation while a case works its way to the Supreme Court.
The procedural vote to bring the bill to the floor passed with seven Republican defectors. By the time the final vote came, three more had joined. That kind of erosion, from seven to ten in a matter of hours, suggests the caucus discipline problems run deeper than a handful of moderates from blue-leaning districts.
Just one day earlier, the House passed a separate measure by a razor-thin 214-213 margin. That vote showed just how fragile the Republican majority has become on the House floor, where a single defection can determine the outcome.
Lawler may be right that ending TPS without a transition plan creates practical problems in districts with large Haitian populations. That is a real-world concern. But practical concerns do not explain why ten Republicans chose to hand Democrats a floor victory on immigration in the same week a Haitian illegal immigrant was arrested for a hammer murder in Fort Myers.
The voters who sent these members to Washington did not elect them to extend deportation protections for illegal immigrants. They elected them to end those protections. When the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on April 29, the legal question will be whether the administration had the authority to terminate Haiti's TPS designation. The political question was already answered Thursday: ten Republicans decided the answer didn't matter.
A majority that cannot enforce its own priorities on the issue that defines it is not much of a majority at all.
