{"id":614329,"date":"2026-04-30T01:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T01:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/614329\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T01:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T01:33:08","slug":"court-considers-whether-trump-administration-properly-ended-temporary-protected-status-for-haitian-and-syrian-nationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/614329\/","title":{"rendered":"Court considers whether Trump administration properly ended temporary protected status for Haitian and Syrian nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court on Wednesday was divided in Mullin v. Doe<\/a> over the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to strip citizens of Haiti and Syria of their protections under a federal program that allows foreign citizens to remain in the United States when the U.S. government believes that it is not safe for them to go home. After roughly<\/a> one hour and 45 minutes of oral arguments<\/a>, it was not clear whether a majority of the justices would allow the challengers\u2019 claims to go forward, or whether the challengers would ultimately prevail if they did.<\/p>\n

The program at the center of the case is known as the Temporary Protected Status program. Enacted by Congress in 1990<\/a>, it authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to designate a country\u2019s citizens as eligible to remain in the U.S. and work if they cannot return safely to their own country because of a natural disaster, armed conflict, or other \u201cextraordinary and temporary\u201d conditions there.<\/p>\n

Then-Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano designated Haiti<\/a> under the TPS program in 2010, shortly after a powerful earthquake rocked the country, killing more than 300,000 people<\/a> and causing extensive damage.<\/p>\n

Two years later, Napolitano made a similar designation for Syria<\/a>, citing \u201cdeteriorating conditions\u201d in the country after a \u201cbrutal crackdown\u201d by Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad against anti-government dissenters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The initial designations of Haiti and Syria lasted for 18 months but were repeatedly extended until 2025, when Kristi Noem \u2013 then the Secretary of Homeland Security \u2013 announced that the Trump administration planned to end both<\/a> designations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Noem indicated that a new Syrian government was attempting to \u201cmove the country to a stable institutional governance,\u201d and that she had determined that \u201cthere are no extraordinary and temporary conditions in Haiti that prevent Haitian nationals \u2026 from returning in safety.\u201d And in both cases, she indicated that it would be \u201ccontrary to the national interest\u201d to allow the countries\u2019 TPS designation to remain in place.<\/p>\n

A group of Haitian nationals with TPS went to federal court in Washington, D.C., to challenge Noem\u2019s efforts to end the program, while a group of Syrians with TPS did the same in New York. Federal judges in those cities blocked the Trump administration from ending the TPS program for Haiti and Syria, and two federal appeals courts declined to step in.<\/p>\n

That prompted the Trump administration to come to the Supreme Court earlier this year, asking the justices to put the lower courts\u2019 orders on hold and hear oral arguments in the disputes now, without waiting for the federal appeals courts to weigh in. The request came less than a year after the Supreme Court twice<\/a>\u00a0paused<\/a> rulings by a federal district judge in San Francisco that would have temporarily blocked the Trump administration from ending a TPS designation (as well as an extension of that designation) for Venezuela.<\/p>\n

In an order<\/a> on March 16, the Supreme Court agreed to take up the Haiti and Syria disputes, but it left the lower courts\u2019 rulings in place, so that the Trump administration could not end the TPS designations for Haitian and Syrian nationals while the case moved forward at the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Representing the Trump administration, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices on Wednesday that under the statute creating the TPS program, courts cannot review any determination by the DHS secretary with regard to the designation or termination of a foreign nation for protected status. \u201cThat provision means what it says,\u201d Sauer stressed: It bars review of both the ultimate decision to terminate and each step that leads to it. Moreover, he added, the Haitian and Syrian nationals\u2019 claims in this case challenge the kinds of foreign-policy decisions that political branches normally make.<\/p>\n

Representing the Syrian challengers, UCLA law professor Ahilan Arulanantham countered that although the DHS secretary \u201ccan terminate TPS, \u2026 he must turn square corners, follow the rules Congress set.\u201d Arulanantham warned the justices that the government was asking for a \u201cblank check\u201d that could ultimately turn into a \u201cdouble-edged sword\u201d: a future DHS secretary, he suggested, could use it to provide sweeping relief to all undocumented immigrants, but on the government\u2019s reading, \u201cthe courts could do nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Geoffrey Pipoly represented the Haitian challengers. He told the justices that Noem\u2019s \u201ctermination of Haiti\u2019s TPS was different. It was not the result of the mandatory review process but was instead a preordained result driven by the President\u2019s resolve to end TPS for Haiti, no matter what.\u201d Indeed, Pipoly continued, the termination was the result of President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cracial animus towards non-white immigrants and bare dislike of Haitians, in particular.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court\u2019s three Democratic appointees were all skeptical that, as Sauer contended, Congress had barred courts from considering claims \u2013 like the challengers\u2019 \u2013 that the DHS secretary had not followed the appropriate procedures in terminating TPS status.<\/p>\n

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, for example, emphasized that, in the TPS statute, \u201cCongress has clearly required \u2026 certain statutory steps, to include, for example, consultation.\u201d Could courts review a claim alleging, Jackson asked Sauer, that the DHS secretary had made a determination \u201cwithout following the statutory steps?\u201d<\/p>\n

When Sauer responded that they could not, Jackson expressed puzzlement. Why, she asked, would Congress enact this statute and require the DHS secretary to take specific steps \u201cif there was no ability for anyone to challenge the Secretary\u2019s compliance?\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice Sonia Sotomayor had a similar question, asking Sauer whether courts could review a termination of TPS announced on X, \u201ceffective tomorrow.\u201d When Sauer again answered that they could not, Sotomayor pressed him, noting that the DHS secretary in doing so would not have complied with several of the statutory requirements, such as the mandate to publish the announcement in the Federal Register and to give TPS holders 60 days\u2019 notice of the termination.<\/p>\n

Sauer continued to maintain that courts could not weigh in.<\/p>\n

Justice Elena Kagan acknowledged that courts may not be able to review the substance of the DHS secretary\u2019s decision to designate or terminate a designation. \u201cBut that\u2019s a different thing than to say that all the things that the statute says that the Secretary is supposed to do in order to determine\u201d that substance \u201care themselves unreviewable,\u201d she posited.<\/p>\n

Justice Amy Coney Barrett had tough questions for both sides. On one hand, she hinted that she might agree with the Democratic appointees that at least some claims are reviewable: if they are, she asked Sauer, what standards should a court then apply to determine whether the DHS secretary had sufficiently consulted with federal agencies before designating a country or terminating a designation under TPS?<\/p>\n

But on the other hand, Barrett asked Arulanantham whether allowing courts to review the procedural aspects of the DHS secretary\u2019s decision but not the substance was just a \u201cbox-checking exercise\u201d that would not ultimately help TPS holders very much. Why, she queried, \u201cwould Congress permit review of the procedural aspect when, really, what everybody cares about much more is the substance?\u201d<\/p>\n

Arulanantham responded that it was \u201cbecause Congress and us too and the millions of people who live with TPS holders have some faith in government, and they believe that if there is consultation, the decisions will be better.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the debate turned to the challengers\u2019 claims that Noem had violated the federal law governing administrative agencies when she terminated the TPS designations, much of the focus was on whether Noem had met the requirement that she consult with other agencies before terminating the TPS designations.<\/p>\n

Sauer told the justices that the obligation to consult imposed only a minimal requirement. \u201cIf she sought input from State,\u201d Sauer stressed, \u201cshe has consulted.\u201d \u201c[T]his is the sort of discretionary call that for very good reasons the statute\u201d gives the DHS secretary the power to make.<\/p>\n

Kagan was skeptical. \u201c[I]f Congress says to consult about a particular subject matter,\u201d she told Sauer, \u201cthen it seems as though what Congress said was you should ask somebody and they should give an answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice Samuel Alito appeared unpersuaded. \u201c[I]t\u2019s always going to be possible to \u2026 raise objections about the adequacy \u2026 of the consultation and the words that the State Department comes back with,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But Arulanantham tried to assure the court that the challengers\u2019 consultation claim was \u201cextremely narrow.\u201d \u201cAll we say is it has to be about a subject, deliberation about a subject,\u201d he emphasized.<\/p>\n

Chief Justice John Roberts, whose vote could prove pivotal in the case, appeared to express doubt about the government\u2019s reliance on the court\u2019s 2018 decision in Trump v. Hawaii<\/a>, in which the justices upheld Trump\u2019s restrictions on immigration from eight countries, several of which were predominantly Muslim, to defend against the Haitian challengers\u2019 claim that the termination of the TPS designation for Syria also violated the Constitution\u2019s guarantee of equal protection because it was grounded in racial animus. In Trump v. Hawaii, the government argued, the Supreme Court applied a relatively low bar, making clear that such restrictions could pass muster as long as the government\u2019s actions \u201cplausibly relate[] to the Government\u2019s stated objective.\u201d And in this case, the government argued in its brief<\/a>, the termination of Haiti\u2019s TPS designation \u201cis plausibly related to the national-interest and foreign-policy justifications the Secretary provided.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roberts told Sauer that Trump v. Hawaii involved the president\u2019s efforts to restrict who could enter the United States. \u201cHere, we\u2019re concerned with the Secretary and \u2026 aliens that \u2026 are already present\u201d in the United States. \u201cYour argument,\u201d Roberts asked, \u201cis a significant expansion of Trump v. Hawaii, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sotomayor pointed to derogatory remarks that Trump made about nonwhite immigrants and Haitian immigrants in particular, noting that Trump had called Haiti a \u201cfilthy, dirty, and disgusting S-hole country\u201d and \u201ccomplained that the United States takes people from such countries instead of people from Norway, Sweden, or Denmark.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t see how that one statement is not a prime example of\u201d how \u201ca discriminatory purpose may have played a part in this decision,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Sauer characterized the statement as \u201cunilluminating,\u201d and suggested that, in any event, Trump\u2019s statements were \u201cless relevant\u201d than Noem\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Alito questioned Pipoly\u2019s contention that all of the countries whose TPS designations Noem had terminated were non-white countries, telling him that he had \u201ca really broad definition of who\u2019s white and who\u2019s not white. As I said,\u201d Alito continued, \u201cI don\u2019t like dividing the people of the world into these groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

A decision in the case is expected by late June or early July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Supreme Court on Wednesday was divided in Mullin v. Doe over the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to strip…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-614329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}