WASHINGTON \u2014 The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for the Trump administration to remove legal protections from thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants in the United States, meaning they could be subject to deportation.<\/p>\n
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The court, on a 6-3 vote on ideological lines, ruled in favor<\/a> of the administration, which asked to continue with its plan to strip Temporary Protected Status from about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. <\/p>\n The ruling could also boost the administration\u2019s efforts to remove similar protections from people from other countries as part of President Donald Trump\u2019s hardline immigration policy.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a tremendous win for the Trump Administration. Today, the Supreme Court affirmed what President Trump has always maintained: temporary protected status is, by definition, temporary,\u201d White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement.<\/p>\n Writing for the majority, conservative Justice Samuel Alito said that judges overstepped their authority in second-guessing the administration\u2019s decisions. The court also rejected a claim that the decision to remove protections for Haitians was discriminatory.<\/p>\n The law in question \u201cexpressly restricts\u201d courts from reviewing determinations made by the Department of Homeland Security on whether to terminate or extend TPS protections, he added.<\/p>\n As for the claims of discrimination against Haitians, Alito said the statements cited by plaintiffs were not \u201covertly racial\u201d and were \u201cinsufficient to show that the termination of Haiti\u2019s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people.\u201d<\/p>\n In dissent, liberal Justice Elena Kagan accused the majority of soft-peddling Trump\u2019s comments about Haitians.<\/p>\n \u201cThe statements fairly shout, in their racial undertones and overtones alike, that race entered into the president\u2019s resolve to remove Haitians from this country,\u201d she wrote. <\/p>\n Kagan extensively quoted Trump himself, including his 2018 statement that Haiti is a \u201cshithole country\u201d <\/a>and comments he made during the 2024 election baselessly claiming that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people\u2019s pets<\/a>.<\/p>\n Without protected status, affected people are subject to deportation via the normal legal process. But they can seek other avenues for remaining in the U.S. by, for example, claiming asylum.<\/p>\n Geoff Pipoly and Andy Tauber, who were lead counsel in the case before the Supreme Court, said in a joint statement that \u201csimply put, the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling will directly result in thousands of innocent people dying violent, needless deaths.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThis decision will endanger Haitian TPS holders who fled their homeland in pursuit of what generations of immigrants yearned for when they made the painful decision to leave all they have known: to live in safety,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n Dahlia Doe, a Syrian TPS recipient and lead plaintiff in the case said the ruling is a \u201cdevastating blow to me and thousands of TPS holders and our families who built our lives in this country in good faith.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are real people whose futures now hang in the balance. This is not simply a legal outcome, for us it is the loss of stability, the fear of separation from our families, and the uncertainty of what comes next,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n Last year, the Supreme Court in two separate decisions<\/a> allowed the Trump administration to revoke the same kind of legal status from 600,000 Venezuelans in the U.S. The Trump administration argued in court papers that those actions set a precedent that lower courts should have applied to the Haitian and Syrian immigrants, too.<\/p>\n The TPS program, in place since 1990, provides humanitarian relief to people from countries reeling from war, natural disasters or other catastrophes. Recipients have legal status in the U.S. and can apply for work authorization for up to 18 months, subject to extensions.<\/p>\n But former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem concluded that Haiti and Syria no longer met any of the conditions for legal status, saying conditions in both countries have improved. <\/p>\n The State Department currently tells Americans not to travel to either country, with both included on its “do not travel” list.<\/p>\n “Haiti has been under a State of Emergency since March 2024. Crimes involving firearms are common in Haiti. They include robbery, carjackings, sexual assault, and kidnappings for ransom,” the State Department says regarding Haiti.<\/a><\/p>\n