Time was running out for Donia Lehaf and her two teenage children. They had fled the violence in their native Lebanon in 2024 and come to the United States under Temporary Protected Status accorded to nationals of countries suffering from armed conflict or environmental disaster. But the Trump administration has moved to sharply curtail the program, and in May Lebanese in the U.S. were slated to lose their TPS status.
Donia and her children were at JFK airport on a plane bound for Beirut when she got word of an unexpected reprieve. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service had automatically extended the Temporary Protected Status for Lebanon for six months.
Lehaf and her two children after they boarded their flight back to Lebanon in May.
They quickly got off the plane. “It was a very emotional moment for me because I suddenly had to make a life changing decision within minutes,” Lehaf said. “But as a mother I felt I had one last opportunity to protect my children’s safety.”
Lehaf said she has always intended to return to her home in South Lebanon when it is safe. But her political views, religion and way of life, she said, do not confirm to those of Hezbollah, the Shiite militia and political party that is a major power in South Lebanon, one Israel is fighting to extinguish and the government in Beirut has pledged to curtail. Violence is a constant: Three days after Lehaf got off the plane, she said, her 16-year-old nephew was killed in South Lebanon.
“It’s very emotional and stressful because I’m thinking about my family, back home all the time,” she added.
Citing rapidly unfolding events in Lebanon, USCIS said it had been unable to conduct a thorough review of country conditions, extending TPS status for Lebanese until November 27. Last month the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that courts had no standing to intervene in the government’s revocation of TPS status for 50,000 Haitians and about 6,000 Syrians. With that, TPS status has effectively ended for nationals of 13 of the 17 countries originally granted it. Citizens of El Salvador, Sudan and Ukraine, like Lehaf and others from Lebanon, have a reprieve until the autumn, but could find the program ending for them as well.
An estimated 11,000 individuals from Lebanon are currently in the U.S. and eligible for TPS. TPS allows nationals from designated countries to live and work legally in the United States temporarily when conditions in their home country make returning unsafe.
As the USCIS determination in May indicated, South Lebanon is in turmoil. Hezbollah launched rockets and drones toward Israel on March 2, in response to U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, escalating the broader regional unrest from the war with Iran. It was the first time Hezbollah fired at Israel since a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in November 2024.
Cross-border unrest has followed the events in March, and Israel has responded with airstrikes throughout Lebanon, particularly Hezbollah strongholds. On March 24, Israel’s Defense Minister said Israel would occupy large part of southern Lebanon. Israeli strikes caused 2,759 deaths and 8,512 injuries since 2 March 2026, according to the Lebanon Ministry of Public Health. A million people, one-fifth of the country’s population, have been displaced.
Lebanon has long been a host to 1.5 million refugees displaced by the 14-year war in neighboring Syria. Some politicians have blamed them for the country’s economic and social challenges, citing the strain they have allegedly placed on the country’s resources and economy. The fall of Bashar al-Assad has renewed hopes of return, but Syria’s economy remains fragile.
The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) have expanded deployments south of the Litani River and begun implementing a government-led Hezbollah disarmament plan, though progress remains limited and politically sensitive.
We don’t want to stay here [in the U.S.] forever. We need to go back to our families, to our homes, to our lives…So, we’re hoping that one day there will be peace, stability, and safety.
Donia Lehaf
TPS is not a path to permanent residency or citizenship, but recipients can apply for other immigration benefits independently while holding TPS. While Lehaf has TPS, she said she has been waiting for a work permit since February 2025.
“I didn’t want to stay in the United States illegally. I had to respect the law and do the right thing to my family,” Lehaf said, explaining why she was reluctantly aboard that plane in late May. The prospect remains that she and her family will have to make that move before the year is out.
The Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Iran released on June 17 declares the termination of military operations and ensures the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon. The final deal will confirm the permanent termination of the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon.
“[The deal] is potentially one factor in deciding whether to extend TPS for Lebanon, but there are many humanitarian and political factors in deciding whether to extend or terminate any country’s TPS designation,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor of immigration law practice at Cornell Law School.
The specifics of how the deal means for Lebanon and its eventual implementation is also unknown and whether or not Israel will continue its security measures in Lebanon or allow the LAF to take control of territories, said senior intelligence executive and lecturer at George Washington University, Paul Shaya.
Whether the LAF can disarm Hezbollah will also be a major determinant of humanitarian conditions on the ground. While Hezbollah openly pursues the goals of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), it also represents Lebanon’s Shia population, which has historically been ignored by the Lebanese government, Shaya added.
For Lehaf, a tenuous ceasefire is no sufficient guarantee of safety. “I hope that the TPS is going to be extended if the situation is still critical like this in Lebanon,” she said.
If it is not, the Lebanese diaspora in the U.S. will return to a country with problems that go well beyond Hezbollah. Lebanon suffered a major economic crisis in 2019 and a port explosion in 2020, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. These conditions were further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, followed by two years of no presidency before the current occupation by Israeli forces.
Lebanon relies greatly on its tourism industry, making up 10.3% of the GDP and remittances from diaspora in the Gulf Cooperation Council, making up 33.3% of the GDP, but that has been impacted by the countries in the GCC being targeted in the war.
“The economy is improving, but it’s improving almost despite everything that’s happening,” Shaya said. “Could Lebanon absorb more people? Yes, but it is kind of dire. I think the other way though to look at it is that a lot of brain drain has taken place and Lebanon really needs some of those people. I think there’s a lot that Lebanon can do, especially when its stable.”
Ultimately, the humanitarian situation will depend on how Iran interacts with its neighbors and uses Hezbollah as a tool in that interaction.
“We don’t want to stay here [in the U.S.] forever. We need to go back to our families, to our homes, to our lives,” Lehaf said. “So, we’re hoping that one day there will be peace, stability, and safety.”
