When U.S. offi­cials granted tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus to Haitians in the United States days after the Jan. 12 earth­quake in Haiti, they expected as many as 200,000 appli­ca­tions. But nearly three months later, fed­eral offi­cials say 42,942 Haitians have filed for TPS.

So far, the num­ber of fil­ings more closely matches the num­bers ini­tially pre­dicted by local immi­grant rights activists. They said in late Jan­u­ary that they expected about 30,000 undoc­u­mented Haitians to apply for TPS.

A few days ago, a fed­eral immi­gra­tion offi­cial con­ceded that the orig­i­nal esti­mate may have been exces­sive, cit­ing sub­se­quent con­sul­ta­tions with immi­gra­tion advo­cates and experts. The offi­cial from U.S. Cit­i­zen­ship and Immi­gra­tion Ser­vices said the new offi­cial esti­mate is between 70,000 and 100,000.

“We had this ini­tial burst of activ­ity and inter­est and that has slowed down,” said Ran­dolph McGrorty, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Catholic Legal Services.

McGrorty and other South Florida immi­gra­tion attor­neys — long­time cham­pi­ons for TPS, well before the quake — say they antic­i­pate a “surge” as the July 20 dead­line nears. They attribute the drop to a $470 appli­ca­tion fee, a com­mu­nity fear of being “trapped” by fed­eral author­i­ties and a com­pli­cated appli­ca­tion process.

RUMORS

USCIS and com­mu­nity groups, such as the Sant La Hait­ian Neigh­bor­hood Cen­ter in Miami, have held forums and meet­ings to help answer ques­tions about TPS or help fill out paper­work. They’ve also warned prospec­tive appli­cants about scams and sought to defuse rumors.

“The rumor mill is alive and well and peo­ple are dis­tort­ing facts, mis­in­formed, afraid, appre­hen­sive and assum­ing the worst,” said Gep­sie Metel­lus, exec­u­tive direc­tor of Sant La. “As ser­vice providers, we need to get the real word out there.”

On March 16, more than 500 Haitians, includ­ing sev­eral chil­dren, showed up at the Miami field office of USCIS to be fin­ger­printed and pho­tographed — part of the pro­cess­ing of their appli­ca­tions for TPS.

TPS shields undoc­u­mented immi­grants from deten­tion and depor­ta­tion. In the case of Hait­ian TPS, the pro­tec­tion from depor­ta­tion will last 18 months, though the ben­e­fit is expected to be renewed as TPS has been renewed repeat­edly for Cen­tral Americans.

WORK PERMITS

Appli­cants can also request work per­mits, which immi­gra­tion offi­cials say they plan to start issu­ing soon. Immi­gra­tion advo­cates say the work per­mits are crit­i­cal because they allow Hait­ian nation­als here to wire remit­tances to fam­ily mem­bers back in Haiti whose homes were wrecked in the quake.

The Hait­ian group was from the first wave of appli­cants who filed peti­tions shortly after the U.S. gov­ern­ment granted the ben­e­fit fol­low­ing the 7.0-magnitude earth­quake that destroyed much of Port-au-Prince. The quake killed more than 200,000 peo­ple and dis­placed 1.3 mil­lion, accord­ing to the government.

On Jan. 20, USCIS chief Ale­jan­dro May­orkas said that between 100,000 and 200,000 undoc­u­mented Haitians were expected to file peti­tions before the fil­ing dead­line of July 20.

After May­orkas announced the higher fig­ure, some area activists revised their fig­ures, but their pro­jec­tions were still much lower than offi­cial projections.

The Migra­tion Pol­icy Insti­tute, an immi­gra­tion pol­icy cen­ter in Wash­ing­ton, esti­mated in a recent analy­sis that only about 70,000 Haitians might be eli­gi­ble for TPS.

Some of the TPS appli­cants who showed up for pro­cess­ing, spec­u­lated that many Haitians may wait until the last minute to file peti­tions because they are sav­ing money to cover the steep fil­ing fee.

The total cost of a TPS appli­ca­tion is $470, which includes $50 for the appli­ca­tion itself, $340 for a work per­mit and $80 for “bio­met­rics,” the fin­ger­print­ing and pho­tograph­ing process.

“A lot of peo­ple have dif­fi­culty find­ing the money to pay for all the fees asso­ci­ated with TPS and they either don’t have the money or are sav­ing right now to pay for it and file before the dead­line,” said Jacquelin Nore­lus, 33, a cab dri­ver and restau­rant worker.

Mar­jorie Dabady, who showed up at the field office Wednes­day for fin­ger­print­ing, said she didn’t have the money to cover the fees but that she was able to pay because her hus­band gave her the money.

“I am not work­ing and with­out my hus­band I would not have been able to pay for the ser­vice,” she said.

She also said that TPS forms are so com­plex that many peo­ple need help from attor­neys or notaries to fill them out.

“We paid $100 to some­one who helped us,” she said.

WAIVERS

Though appli­cants can request fee waivers, not all waivers are approved. Accord­ing to fig­ures pro­vided by USCIS, 2,307 appli­cants have asked for fee waivers, but only 1,174 have been approved. Activists and even a Miami-Dade County com­mis­sioner have called for the com­plete waiv­ing of appli­ca­tion fees.

Dabady’s hus­band, Olivier, a nurse, said he and his wife con­sid­ered ask­ing for a fee waiver but decided against it because they didn’t want to go through the “anx­i­ety” of wait­ing for an approval or rejec­tion, or hav­ing to wait longer for their TPS request to be processed.

The main rea­sons for rejec­tion include not enclos­ing the cor­rect fil­ing fee, not com­plet­ing forms, fail­ing to include bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion and not sign­ing forms.