The Supreme Court heard arguments over the Trump administration’s bid to end TPS protections for Syrians and Haitians, with broader stakes for immigrants living and working in the U.S.
The Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday over the Trump administration’s effort to end Temporary Protected Status for Syrian and Haitian immigrants, a case that could determine whether hundreds of thousands of people may remain shielded from deportation while lower-court challenges proceed.
The disputes, known as Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot , stem from decisions by then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to terminate TPS for roughly 6,000 Syrians and 350,000 Haitians. Lower courts in New York and Washington, D.C., postponed the effective dates, and appeals courts declined to put those rulings on hold. The Supreme Court agreed in March to consider the administration’s bid but left the protections in place while it reviews the cases.
The core question before the justices is not only whether the administration lawfully ended TPS for the two countries, but whether courts may review the process behind those decisions at all. The administration argues that TPS determinations are committed to the political branches and are largely insulated from judicial review. Lawyers for the immigrants say the courts can examine whether the homeland security secretary followed the statute’s required process, including consultation with the State Department about country conditions.
Temporary Protected Status, created by Congress in 1990, allows the homeland security secretary to grant temporary, country-specific relief to foreign nationals who cannot safely return home because of war, natural disaster or other extraordinary conditions. The relief is time-limited but can be extended if conditions remain unsafe.
During arguments, the justices examined whether Noem satisfied the law’s consultation requirement before finding that Syria and Haiti no longer qualified. Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned whether the consultation requirement would become little more than a procedural formality if courts could review it while the final decision remained off limits. Chief Justice John Roberts pressed on how courts would measure claims that political considerations improperly influenced the decisions.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer, representing the administration, argued that the lawsuits challenge foreign-policy judgments entrusted to the executive and legislative branches. In court filings, he said lower courts had substituted “their own views for those of the Executive as to procedures, country conditions, and foreign-policy objectives.” He also rejected claims that Noem failed to consult the State Department and called the finding of racial animus in the Haiti case a “legal and factual nonstarter.”
The challengers argue the administration’s review was inadequate and inconsistent with current U.S. travel warnings. The State Department has Level 4 advisories for both Syria and Haiti, warning Americans not to travel there because of threats that include kidnapping, terrorism, unrest, violence and crime. Geoffrey Pipoly, arguing for Haitian plaintiffs, told the justices that documents show the Department of Homeland Security’s country-conditions review was a “sham.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor pushed back on the administration’s view that courts cannot review whether the required process was followed. “Congress could have said any termination of TPS status is unreviewable, but it didn’t,” she said, according to CBC’s account of the argument.
The broader stakes remain substantial, though the sources describe the affected population in different ways. CBS reported that Trump and his administration have moved to end TPS relief for 1 million immigrants from 13 countries since the start of his second term. CBC reported that a ruling for the administration could have implications for 1.3 million immigrants from 17 designated countries who have received TPS.
Syria was first designated for TPS in 2012 after the Obama administration cited extraordinary conditions tied to Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on anti-government protests. Haiti first received the designation in 2010 after a devastating earthquake, and the Biden administration later extended protections amid economic, health and political crises following the 2021 assassination of Haiti’s president.
The Supreme Court previously allowed the Department of Homeland Security to revoke protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants, putting them at risk of removal. In the Syrian and Haitian cases, the protections remain in place for now. CBC reported that an opinion is expected in late June or early July.
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