By admin 
The nation’s highest court paved the way for President Donald Trump to deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Haiti and Syria fleeing instability and violence in their home countries in a case about their deportation protections under Temporary Protected Status.
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In a 6-3 decision, t the federal law is clear in that it prohibits judges to review executive branch decisions about TPS that are unrelated to constitutional claims. It also said that the arguments that the Trump administration was terminating it because of race, violating equal protection claims, “is unlikely to succeed.”
“Respondents and the courts below offer no sound theories to overcome the plain meaning of the judicial-review bar. Respondents’ argument that the [TPS law applies only to substantive claims, not those based on alleged procedural errors, finds no support in the statutory language,” reads the majority opinion, authored by Justice Samuel Alito.
“Reversed and remanded,” wrote Alito, meaning that federal judges’ rulings upholding the protections was reversed and that the case was sent back to the lower courts.
The Supreme Court’s decision deals a major blow to beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status and comes less than a week after internal documents published show DHS did not follow federal law because it did not consult with the State Department before terminating Haiti’s TPS.
READ MORE: ‘Noem lied’: Emails suggest DHS ignored federal law to end TPS for 350k Haitians
It’s also a major victory for the Trump administration, whose mass-deportation agenda has relied on stripping hundreds of thousands of immigrants with legal status of their work permits and deportation protections. It could pave the way for the Trump administration to end TPS without judicial review for a slew of other countries as well.
It also has significant consequences for Florida, where a third of all Haitian TPS holders, reside. It leaves Haitians and Syrians under the program without deportation protections or work permits and vulnerable to, leaving them vulnerable to Trump arresting and detaining them.
The administration has already rounded up hundreds of former TPS holders from Venezuela, which already lost TPS protections in another Supreme Court emergency ruling while lower court litigation is pending. It also recently deported a TPS holder who has lived in Florida for over 20 years from the Florida Keys to Haiti. Shortly after, he returned to the U.S. because his deportation was illegal.
READ MORE: Trump administration detains hundreds of Venezuelans with TPS despite court order
The State Department is involved in the deployment of the international Gang Suppression Force to Haiti. The effort is funded by assessed contributions to the United Nations and voluntary donations That alone is an acknowledgment by the Trump administration of the instability in Haiti and is among the reasons that federal lawmakers have said should be considered in designating a country for TPS, advocates have argued.
In a statement to the Miami Herald, James Percival, the Department of Homeland Security’s General Counsel celebrated the decision, saying that “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.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose state has the largest population of TPS holders in the country, called it the “correct decision.”
Geoffrey Pipoly, an attorney who argued on behalf of Haitians in the Supreme Court, said that his team was reviewing the decision and evaluating next steps. He said that the decision meant that the Trump administration can now “break the law flagrantly and openly and make no secret of it and the federal courts can’t stop it, because the Supreme Court” said so in Thursday’s ruling. He added that the most surprising aspect of the decision was that it did not conclude that Trump’s comments were not based on race. The majority opinion says that “none of the cited comments were overtly racial.”
Trump has said falsely said that Haitians eat dogs and cats. He has also said regarding Haitians that they “all have AIDS,” and has called Haiti a “shithole” country, among other remarks.
“The majority put blinders on to the evidence, and I think their outcome, like the government’s outcome was preordained,” said Pipoly.
Strong dissent
Justices Elena Kegan wrote the dissenting decision, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, where she said that to “preclude review of those determinations is of course to insulate critical matters from judicial scrutiny.”
Kagan also addressed internal documents that showed former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had failed to consult with the appropriate countries about conditions when deciding what to do with a TPS designation, as federal law requires.
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Kagan also found that the argument that race had likely entered into the decision-making was likely to succeed. “The statements fairly shout, in their racial undertones and overtones alike, that race entered into the President’s resolve to remove Haitians from this country,” wrote Kagan, adding that TPS holders from Syria and Haiti should be allowed to stay while litigating their cases. They “should not instead be consigned to devastating, and indeed-life threatening injury.”
READ MORE: Decades after landmark immigration case, Haitian protections return to Supreme Court
Long history of litigation
The TPS Supreme Court ruling stems from emergency requests that the Trump administration made to the Supreme Court asking for the justices to end the protections for Haiti after three lower courts ruled in favor of TPS holders from the Caribbean country. That includes Judge Ana Reyes, who is on the district court in Washington, D.C., and said the comments from then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem about Haitians showed prejudice.
In its emergency request, the Department of Justice argued that the courts were overreaching their authority and that the plaintiff claims about improper procedures to end TPS were meritless because the courts don’t have the right to review TPS terminations.
The Supreme Court consolidated that emergency request with another for ending protections for Syria, which has about 4,000 TPS holders living in the United States. It heard arguments in April.
The Trump administration first ended TPS for Haiti in February 2025, around the same time it also did for Venezuela. The Department of Homeland Security, then under Noem, argued that conditions in Haiti were safe enough for its nationals living in the United States to return despite ongoing extreme violence, widespread hunger and political instability. At the same time, the Department of State has said American travelers should not go to Haiti.
The United Nations estimates that up to 90% of Port-au-Prince is controlled by gangs and that gang violence has killed over 2,300 people in Haiti since the beginning of this year. Haiti first received TPS in 2010 during the Obama administration after an earthquake that the Haitian government estimates killed over 300,000 people.
The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to end protections for Venezuela in October. It gave no reasoning. A lower federal court in California had determined that those terminations were illegal.
On Wednesday, major back-to-back earthquakes struck Venezuela, killing at least 164 people and injuring hundreds of others. Buildings in the capital of Caracas collapsed, and there was significant damage in several north-central Venezuelan states, including La Guaira. Thousands are feared to be trapped under the rubble as rescue and recovery efforts are ongoing.
READ MORE: Venezuela double quake death toll climbs, and thousands feared trapped
The natural disaster exacerbates the humanitarian and political crises that are ongoing. Natural disasters such as destructive earthquakes are one of the reasons DHS can grant TPS, and questions abound whether Trump will continue to deport people following the devastating seismic activity.
Other countries with pending litigation whose nationals still hold TPS under lower court orders include Burma, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Yemen. The Supreme Court ruling Thursday could change the course of those cases.
Jose Palma, spokesman of the National TPS Alliance, said in a statement that while the decision “harms communities and families in real and unnecessary ways…we will not stop fighting for equal rights.”
Another consequential ruling
On Thursday, the Supreme Court also ruled that federal law “neither entitles an alien standing in Mexico to apply for asylum nor requires an immigration officers to inspect him.”
Percival, of DHS, called it the administration’s “second Supreme Court win of the day.” Immigration advocates say the ruling effectively allows the Trump administration to turn away immigrants seeking asylum at ports of entry and will radically reshape access to asylum.
Sotomayor penned the dissent, writing that the ruling “blesses the Executive Branch’s decision to slam the door shut on all who are fleeing persecution, despite the detailed inspection and asylum system that Congress enacted and commands. She was joined by Kagan and Jackson in this decision as well.
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This is a developing story. Check back for updates