Supreme Court Clears Trump Administration To End TPS For Haitian And Syrian Immigrants

The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for the Trump administration to remove legal protections under Temporary Protected Status for Haitian and Syrian immigrants in the United States, exposing them to deportation.

“Supreme Court allows cancellation of TPS for Haitians, Syrians, as attorneys warn of impact on thousands The ruling is expected to have a sweeping impact on 1”

ABC News

The court ruled on a 6-3 vote on ideological lines in favor of the administration’s plan to strip Temporary Protected Status from about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians, with Justice Samuel Alito writing for the majority that courts overstepped their authority in second-guessing the administration’s decisions.

ABC News

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson called the outcome “a tremendous win for the Trump Administration,” saying “temporary protected status is, by definition, temporary,” while in dissent Justice Elena Kagan accused the majority of soft-pedaling Trump’s comments about Haitians.

The decision also rejected a claim that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was discriminatory, with Alito saying the statements cited by plaintiffs were not “overtly racial” and were “insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people.”

In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said the majority’s approach was shaped by Trump’s rhetoric, writing that the statements “fairly shout, in their racial undertones and overtones alike, that race entered into the president’s resolve to remove Haitians from this country,” and she quoted Trump’s 2018 “shithole country” remark about Haiti.

Geoff Pipoly and Andy Tauber, lead counsel in the case, warned that “simply put, the Supreme Court’s ruling will directly result in thousands of innocent people dying violent, needless deaths,” while Dahlia Doe, a Syrian TPS recipient and lead plaintiff, said the ruling is a “devastating blow to me and thousands of TPS holders and our families who built our lives in this country in good faith.”

Al Jazeera

The AP reported the 6-3 decision overturned lower court orders and allowed the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly end temporary protected status, describing it as exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation.

CNN reported the justices also cleared the way for the Trump administration to revive a policy to curb the number of migrants that officials at the southern border must process to determine whether they have a right to seek safe haven in the US.

The ruling leaves TPS holders vulnerable to deportation through the normal legal process, but NBC News reported they can seek other avenues to remain in the U.S., including claiming asylum.

AP said the program protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries, and it quoted Viles Dorsainvil saying, “Families are here, kids are going to school, parents are going into work, folks are trying to commute, and it’s like the Supreme Court just put all those activities on stop and put folks in limbo.”

In a separate development, Radio-Canada reported that the House of Representatives agreed to consider a bill to extend temporary protected status for Haitian immigrants by three years, with House Democrats advancing the bill despite objections from Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Republican leadership.

NPR reported that the decision affects 350,000 Haitians and that “a third of those Haitians work in our healthcare sector,” while Global Refuge CEO Krish O’Mara Vignarajah said they are caregivers and doctors and that bipartisan support recognized the local impact on Americans seeking care.