U.S. Supreme Court Lets Trump Cancel TPS for Haitians and Syrians

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration can cancel Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians, clearing the way for the government to strip deportation protections that have allowed them to live and work 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

In a 6-3 decision, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the TPS statute “plainly bars consideration of respondents' non-constitutional claims,” and the court said the law governing TPS prevents courts from reviewing the government’s determinations about termination.

ABC News

ABC News said the ruling is expected to have a sweeping impact on the approximately 1.3 million people who rely on TPS to live and work in the United States legally, while the BBC reported that the decision overturned federal judges’ blocks for 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 from Syria.

The BBC also said TPS recipients can legally live and work in the U.S. for up to 18 months, subject to extensions, and during that period they “can not be removed or detained by authorities on the basis of their immigration status.”

Liberal justices dissented, with Justice Elena Kagan saying the statements made by President Donald Trump about the countries whose status was cancelled “fairly shout, in their racial undertones and overtones alike, that race entered into the President's resolve to remove Haitians from this country,” according to the BBC.

ABC News reported that Kagan wrote the majority declined to print “The evidence they have offered includes statements by the President so repellent and racially inflected,” and she argued the statute creating TPS allows courts to review whether DHS followed legally required procedures to cancel the status.

Al Jazeera

The Trump administration welcomed the ruling, and James Percival, the Department of Homeland Security’s General Counsel, said on X that “The T in TPS stands for TEMPORARY, yet many of these designations became de facto amnesty,” framing the decision as “a win for the rule of law and common sense.”

The BBC added that Justice Alito said the Haitian migrants who sued were unlikely to prove the administration’s actions were racially discriminatory and violated equal-protection rights under the Fifth Amendment, while the court’s conservative majority said the plaintiffs’ claims could not proceed in federal court to postpone termination.

The court’s decision could have broader consequences beyond Haiti and Syria, with CBS News saying the ruling could allow the government to move forward with efforts to strip more than 356,000 Syrian and Haitian immigrants of temporary protections that have allowed them to live and work in the United States.

CBS News reported that the dispute arose after the Department of Homeland Security ended TPS for “more than 6,000 Syrians and 350,000 Haitians,” and the Supreme Court reversed lower-court rulings that had postponed the terminations.

The BBC said the decision is likely to have implications for TPS holders from other countries too, and it reported that TPS recipients can legally live and work for up to 18 months while extensions are in place, subject to the court’s ruling.

In Massachusetts, NBC Boston reported that Gov. Maura Healey and Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said the ruling would affect tens of thousands of people living under TPS, and Healey said the Supreme Court “rubber-stamped what has been a cruel and callous and totally wrong-headed approach to immigration.”