President Donald Trump’s administration will end a temporary quasi-amnesty program for almost 60,000 Haitians, but only after a long delay, senior officials said Monday.

Officials speaking on condition of anonymity told reporters that acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke had decided to end the program for victims of the 2010 Haitian earthquake but delay its implementation until July 2019 — a full year and a half after January 22, when it was supposed to expire.

“This 18-month delay will allow significant time for the government of Haiti to prepare for the reintegration and return of its people,” an official said.

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, told LifeZette that the extended delay was disappointing.

“I don’t see any justification for this at all,” she said. “They gave them six months the last time, and now they’re giving them three times as long. Nobody’s going to believe that it’s actually going to end. Who would?”

Related: Trump Administration Poised to End Quasi-Amnesty for 300,000

Vaughan said it is difficult to believe an acting secretary would make such an important decision without input from the White House. She said it could have repercussions far beyond Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for a single nationality.

“It really undermines their credibility on immigration policy in general,” she said.

According to a Congressional Research Service report published this month, 58,557 Haitians in the United States have Temporary Protected Status. This protects them from deportation and authorizes them to work legally in the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security had considered ending TPS for Haitians in May. Then-Secretary John Kelly agreed to extend it for another six months but indicated that status likely would not be renewed again.

“This 18-month delay will allow significant time for the government of Haiti to prepare for the reintegration and return of its people.”

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Officials told reporters that the State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officials had determined that Haiti had made significant progress since the earthquake. An official said Haitians in the country who were displaced by the earthquake had decreased by 97 percent from its 2010 peak and that a Haitian government was in place after two years of an electoral impasse.

Duke and other U.S. officials have met with their Haitian counterparts, and USCIS officers have conducted extensive outreach to TPS beneficiaries throughout the United States, the official said. He added that Duke also solicited input from the congressional delegation in Florida, which has a large number of Haitian TPS beneficiaries.

“As you all know, TPS is a temporary benefit that does not lead to lawful permanent resident status or give any other immigration status,” he said.

Supporters of the TPS program criticized the decision to end it at all.

“There is no reason to send 60,000 Haitians back to a country that cannot provide for them,” Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) tweeted. “This decision today by DHS is unconscionable. And I am strongly urging the administration to reconsider. Ultimately, we need a permanent legislative solution.”

But the administration official who briefed reporters said Duke is bound by the statute, which allows TPS to be renewed only if the conditions that triggered it in the first place remain.

“The law makes it clear that TPS for Haiti must end,” he said. “Only Congress can take action to reform the TPS program or address the concerns voiced by many that these individuals should have a future in the United States.”

Haitians with TPS now will have 60 days to apply for renewal, which will allow them to stay and work in the United States until July 2019. An official said beneficiaries will revert to their previous immigration status after that time. That means that people who were illegal immigrants or whose immigration visas have expired will be required to leave.

He urged people to get their affairs in order and apply for any other immigration status for which they may be eligible.

A State Department official said the United States has worked with the Haitian government to prepare for the return of its citizens. For instance, he said, the U.S. government has spent more than $100 million to combat a cholera outbreak in the Caribbean nation.

“We’ve had a robust program of, you know, supporting the various Haitian governments and the various other sectors of Haitian society since the earthquake … Those efforts will continue,” he said.

Related: Trump Administration to End Quasi-Amnesty for Nicaraguans After 20 Years

The federal government rarely has canceled TPS designations once granting them. The Trump administration earlier this year, however, ended it for citizens of Sudan and said it would end the program for Nicaraguans.

Vaughan, the Center for Immigration Studies analyst, noted that TPS status is fairly open-ended, applying to anyone from a designated country — including, after redesignations in Haiti’s case — even people who arrived years after the earthquake.

“It made a complete mockery of TPS and the idea of temporary humanitarian relief,” she said.

(photo credit, article image: Haiti Earthquake, CC BY 2.0, by RIBI Image Library)