The US Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the US President Donald Trump’s administration to end temporary deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Haiti and Syria.
The 6-3 decision held that federal courts may not “second-guess” the government’s decision to end the program. The decision reverses orders from federal judges in New York and Washington, DC that had paused the terminations. It also clears a path for the administration to strip the status from nationals of other countries as well.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the conservative majority that the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) statute bars judicial review of the Homeland Security secretary’s determinations, and that challengers could not keep their protections in place while their lawsuits proceed. The law, he wrote, “expressly restricts” courts from reviewing such decisions. He also rejected the Haitian plaintiffs’ separate constitutional claim that the terminations were driven by racial bias. Instead, Alito reasoned that the administration’s stated rationales could rest on “race-neutral grounds,” including simple opposition to the program’s methodology. Concurring, Justice Clarence Thomas contended that non-citizens have no equal-protection rights against the federal government.
Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented sharply. She argued that the statute lets courts check whether officials followed the procedures Congress required. Kagan referred to many of President Trump’s past remarks about Haitians: use of a “shameful” epithet, the false rumor that Haitian immigrants were eating their neighbors’ pets, and his claim that immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of the country. She wrote that the statements were so “repellent and racially inflected” that the majority declined to include them in their opinion. Hundreds of thousands of lives, she warned, would be uprooted while the litigation continues.
Created in 1990, TPS allows nationals of countries beset by war, natural disaster or other upheaval live and work in the United States in increments of up to 18 months. It does not offer a path to citizenship. Last year, then–Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem moved to end the designations for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. She certified that conditions in both countries had improved enough for people to return. The State Department nonetheless keeps Haiti and Syria on its “do not travel” list, citing pervasive violence, kidnapping and terrorism. Challengers allege the administration cut procedural corners, including falsely claiming Noem had consulted the State Department. They also allege that Noem acted with anti-Haitian animus. Lawyers pointed to four Haitian women deported in February who, they said in court documents, were later found killed.
The ruling’s reach extends beyond Haiti and Syria. TPS currently shields roughly 1.3 million people from 17 nations, and the administration has already moved to terminate protections for 13 of them. The justices had previously cleared the way for the government to end the program for more than 600,000 Venezuelans while litigation concerning them continued.
The White House celebrated the outcome, with a spokeswoman saying that TPS was not “a pathway to permanent status.” Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wisc) said the country was finally “putting the ‘T’ back in TPS.” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), while affirming Trump’s authority to end the program, said he “strongly disagree[d] with ending Haitian TPS at this time.” He instead urged an orderly six-month wind-down to prevent hospital and nursing home strain.
Liberals overwhelmingly opposed the decision. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass), co-chair of the House Haiti Caucus, called it “a rubber stamp for a cruel and callous administration.” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass) called it “one of the most immoral things” the administration or the Court had ever done. Immigrant-rights groups, the challengers’ attorneys, and others likewise warned that the decision would uproot longtime residents and lead to needless deaths. The underlying cases now return to the lower courts, though the protections can lapse in the meantime.
