Supreme Court Lets Trump Administration End TPS Protections for Haitians and Syrians

The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential 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 AP reported the decision was a 6-3 ruling that overturned lower court orders and allowed the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly end temporary protected status, a program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries.

ABC News

NBC News said the court cleared the way for the Trump administration to remove legal protections for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians, and that the ruling could boost efforts to remove similar protections from people from other countries.

In the majority opinion, conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the law “expressly restricts” courts from reviewing the process immigration authorities use to revoke TPS protections, while liberal Justice Elena Kagan dissented and accused the majority of downplaying Trump’s words.

The dispute over whether the decision was tainted by prejudice centered on Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent, which said Trump’s comments about Haitians were “so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print.”

AP reported that Justice Samuel Alito brushed aside arguments that Trump’s derogatory comments about Haitians showed the decision was unlawfully tinged by prejudice, saying the statements were “insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people.”

AP News

In a Fox News interview, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called the ruling “a victory 10 years in the making,” and said it allows Haitian migrants to “finally” be removed.

NBC News quoted a warning from lead counsel Geoff Pipoly and Andy Tauber that “simply put, the Supreme Court’s ruling will directly result in thousands of innocent people dying violent, needless deaths.”

The ruling leaves Haitians and Syrians in the United States on TPS vulnerable to deportation even if they have applications for other forms of immigration status in progress, according to The Guardian.

“- Published The Supreme Court has ruled that the Trump administration can strip protected status from hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian migrants which has allowed them to stay in the US for years”

BBC

The Guardian also said the state department currently warns against traveling to either Haiti or Syria, citing widespread violence, crime, terrorism and kidnapping.

AP reported that the decision exposes hundreds of thousands to potential deportation starting this year, and that the Supreme Court’s action marked another victory for Republican President Donald Trump’s sweeping crackdown on immigration.

NPR said the court gave Trump the green light to begin mass deportations of people who have been living and working legally in the United States for years, and that the conservative majority ruled the President has virtually unrestrained power to end the Temporary Protected Status program.