The US House of Representatives on Thursday approved legislation to shield 350,000 Haitians from deportations for three years, a rare bipartisan rebuke of Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda enabled by a small group of Republican defectors.

The 224-204 vote saw 11 members of the House Republican conference join with all Democrats to pass the New York Democrat Lauren Gillen’s bill to continue temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitians, a designation that allows them to live and work in the United States without fear of deportation.

Barack Obama’s administration allowed Haitians to become eligible for TPS in the wake of a 2010 earthquake that devastated the capital, Port-au-Prince, and the program was extended by subsequent presidents as the security situation in the country deteriorated.

Trump cancelled the TPS protections for Haitians last year as well as for Syrians, but the terminations have been blocked by a federal judge, and the issue is expected to be decided by the supreme court, which has scheduled arguments for later this month.

Gillen called the vote “a pivotal milestone in the fight to protect the hardworking members of our community from the horrors in Haiti. Now I urge the Senate to take up this measure and to protect our Haitian friends and neighbors.”

It’s unclear whether the measure will be taken up by the Senate, or how it could affect the supreme court’s consideration of the suit over TPS.

The House’s Republican leaders objected to the measure, but were forced to hold a vote after 218 lawmakers signed a discharge petition circulated by the Democrat Ayanna Pressley, who co-chairs the House Haiti caucus.

In a speech on the House floor, Pressley recounted how Haitian nurses had ensured her mother was comfortable as she succumbed to cancer.

“I’m eternally grateful to those women for their kindness, their competence and their empathy. I will not stand idly by as our Haitian neighbors are denigrated, dehumanized, criticized or forced to live in fear of deportation,” she said. “TPS holders are not the problem. Quite the contrary – they are part of the solution. They are not our enemies. They do not exploit our nation. They enhance it.”

Congress’s Republican majorities have largely stood aside as Trump has pushed forward with his campaign promise to deport all people in the country without documentation.

Agencies involved in immigration enforcement, such as the border patrol, Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, received tens of billions of dollars in additional funding under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump’s marquee domestic policy bill that passed solely with Republican votes last year.

Republicans are set to write a measure in the coming weeks that will provide appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for the next three years. Democrats blocked a regular funding bill from passing the Senate because it did not include new guardrails on immigration enforcement operations they demanded after two US citizens were killed by federal agents in Minneapolis.

Polls indicate that Trump’s immigration policy is underwater with voters before the November midterms, and Republicans who voted to continue TPS for Haitians objected both to the dangers of returning them to a dangerous homeland and removing them from productive jobs in the US.

“Those that have lawfully been here under TPS, there needs to be a process to adjudicate their immigration claims and allow them to continue working during that time so that we don’t have a collapse in our healthcare system, which many of them lawfully work in,” said New York Republican Mike Lawler.

The Florida Republican Carlos Gimenez said: “Haitian migrants are not strangers – they are our neighbors, our co-workers and part of the fabric of our community. Haiti today is overrun by violent gangs. It is neither safe nor humane to force our neighbors back into those conditions.”

Republicans who spoke against the measure cited instances where Haitians have been accused of or convicted of violent crimes to argue that the entire group should be removed.

“This whole thing is a scam, is what it is. It was created for people who were protected because there was an earthquake 16 years ago. Now, 350,000 people have been able to stay in our country for 16 years,” said Florida’s Randy Fine.

In a speech on the House floor, the Democratic representative Pramila Jayapal said she hoped the bill would influence the supreme court to stop Trump’s TPS cancellations.

“With the bill before us today, we can send a strong bipartisan message to the court that the body recognizes the reality that Haiti remains deeply unsafe, is in nowhere prepared to accept hundreds of thousands of people returning and that the TPS designation for Haiti should remain in effect,” Jayapal said.