Supreme Court Lets Trump Administration End Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Syrians

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Syrians, clearing the way for the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly end TPS protections for people who had been living and working legally in the United States.

“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 6-3 decision overturned lower court orders and said the TPS law bars courts from reviewing the government’s determinations about terminating a TPS designation, with Justice Samuel Alito writing that the TPS statute “plainly bars consideration of respondents' non-constitutional claims.”

ABC News

ABC News reported the ruling is expected to have a sweeping impact on approximately 1.3 million people who rely on TPS to live and work in the United States legally, and it said the court concluded the Department of Homeland Security has broad discretion with little-to-no judicial oversight.

AP said the decision exposes hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation and allows DHS to end TPS protections for a program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries.

In the majority’s framing, the court also rejected arguments that Trump’s derogatory comments about Haitians showed the decision was unlawfully tinged by prejudice, with AP noting Alito called the statements “insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people.”

Justice Elena Kagan dissented, and AP reported she called Trump’s comments “so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print.”

In the same dispute over whether race played a role, ABC News said attorneys for the Haitian plaintiffs warned the ruling “will directly result in thousands of innocent people dying violent, needless deaths.”

Al Jazeera

The Trump administration and DHS leadership praised the outcome, with ABC News quoting James Percival saying, “The T in TPS stands for TEMPORARY, yet many of these designations became de facto amnesty. This is a win for the rule of law and common sense,” and AP similarly describing Percival’s view that the program had become “de facto amnesty.”

NBC News reported that White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, “This is a tremendous win for the Trump Administration,” and it quoted her statement that the Supreme Court affirmed that “temporary protected status is, by definition, temporary.”

On the ground, AP included testimony about local disruption, quoting Viles Dorsainvil, who runs a support center for Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, 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.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling means affected TPS holders could face deportation through the normal legal process, while also seeking other avenues to remain in the United States, NBC News said.

NBC News reported that without protected status, affected people are subject to deportation and “can seek other avenues to remain in the U.S. by, for example, claiming asylum,” and it also quoted Geoff Pipoly and Andy Tauber saying the Supreme Court’s ruling will directly result in “thousands of innocent people dying violent, needless deaths.”

CBS News said the Supreme Court reversed lower court rulings that had postponed the terminations for more than 6,000 Syrians and 350,000 Haitians, and it described the dispute as testing a key aspect of President Trump’s plan to crack down on immigration.

CBS News also said the decision restricts the ability of immigrants and immigrant rights groups to sue the government over TPS determinations and allege it violated federal law when it terminated the program, and it quoted Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent that “hundreds of thousands of lives will be uprooted” while litigation continues in the lower courts.

The stakes extend beyond the two countries at issue, with ABC News warning the ruling effectively gives the Trump administration the green light to carry out similar terminations for other TPS designations, which it said the administration has already done for 13 countries.