TPS is a creature of Congress, created<\/a> in 1990 to protect individuals in the United States from return to countries facing an ongoing armed conflict, an earthquake or related disaster, or \u201cextraordinary and temporary conditions\u201d that prevent its nationals from returning to safety. Under the immigration statute, the Secretary of Homeland Security has the authority to designate<\/a> a country or part of a country for TPS based on these conditions, \u201cafter consultation with appropriate agencies of the Government.\u201d Designations made for Haiti following<\/a> an earthquake in 2010 and for Syria following<\/a> conditions imposed by a dictator in 2012 were terminated<\/a> by the Secretary in 2025. By statute, before the end of a designation period, the Secretary, \u201cafter consultation with the appropriate agencies of the Government,\u201d should conduct<\/a> a review for the purpose of determining whether conditions meet or do not meet the conditions of designation. A separate subsection of the same statutory scheme, section 1254a(b)(5)(A), addresses<\/a> judicial review: \u201cThere is no judicial review of any determination \u2026 with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation.\u201d<\/p>\n After separate federal courts blocked<\/a> the TPS terminations for Haiti and Syria, and federal appeals courts declined to disturb these decisions, the Trump Administration asked<\/a> the Supreme Court to hear the case and stay the federal court decisions in order to allow the terminations to go into effect. In March, the Supreme Court split<\/a> the bill by leaving the rulings in place and scheduling a hearing for both cases for April 29, 2026. When I asked my friend Ahilan Arulanantham<\/a>, who also argued the case in\u00a0Mullin v. Doe, about the procedural move from the district court to the Supreme Court, he lamented how both cases came to the Supreme Court \u201cbefore judgment accompanied by stay applications from preliminary relief orders. Neither had completed discovery. In Dahlia Doe<\/a> we didn\u2019t even have the administrative record yet!\u201d\u00a0Such was the procedural posture before briefing and oral arguments before the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n In its briefing to the Supreme Court, the government summarized<\/a>: \u201cThe lower courts erred in postponing the Secretary\u2019s TPS terminations.\u201d It argued<\/a> that section 1254a(b)(5)(A)\u2019s judicial-review bar forecloses all of respondents\u2019 challenges under the Administrative Procedure Act<\/a>, \u201cwhich are meritless in any event \u2026 and their equal-protection challenge to the Haiti termination fails under any applicable standard.\u201d In their response<\/a> to the government before the Supreme Court, the respondents in Doe argued that the Secretary\u2019s failure to consult on country conditions and reliance on other reasons can be reviewed by a court\u2014that the statute does not permit termination of TPS based on \u201cnational interest\u201d to justify termination. The respondents in Miot also argued<\/a> that the termination of TPS for Haitians violated the statute and was further motivated by discriminatory intent:<\/p>\n Just months before his administration moved to terminate Haiti\u2019s TPS designation, President Trump slandered Haitian TPS holders, accusing them of eating the pets of American citizens, and vowed to end Haiti\u2019s TPS designation. Motivated at least in part by that discriminatory intent, the termination violates the Fifth Amendment\u2019s equal-protection guarantee.<\/p>\n More than one dozen friend of the court, or amicus briefs<\/a>, were filed in connection with the TPS cases. One brief<\/a> filed by immigration law scholars focused on the legislative history. Another brief<\/a> filed by administrative law scholars concluded that the that TPS statute \u201cpreserves the Secretary\u2019s role in determining facts and deciding policy, while ensuring that courts retain their essential mandate to define the legal boundaries of agency action.\u201d And a brief<\/a> by the Haitian Lawyers Association<\/a> argued<\/a> that \u201cPresident Trump and key members of his administration openly display their disdain for Haitians and their desire to eject Haitians from this country. Their extreme anti-Haitian invectives are strong evidence that the administration\u2019s cancelation of TPS is motivated by animus.\u201d<\/p>\n During oral argument<\/a>, the justices asked tough questions of the attorneys for both the respondents and the Solicitor General. Some of the questions centered on the relationship between the statutory language barring judicial review and the procedural steps\u2014consultation and review of country conditions thereafter\u2014required by statute for TPS determinations. Well after oral argument, a group of Haitians asked<\/a> the Court to dismiss the case without deciding it based on new evidence pointing to false information that \u201cconsultation\u201d with the U.S. Department of State had taken place in addition to an \u201cunprecedented rationale\u201d for ending TPS for Haiti.<\/p>\n On June 25, Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., writing<\/a> for the majority, found no support to \u201covercome the plain meaning of the judicial-review bar,\u201d rejecting arguments by the respondents that the statutory language is cabined to substantive claims or determinations based on country conditions. Ultimately, the Court found<\/a> that section 1254a(b)(5)(A) \u201cvery clearly overcomes the general presumption of judicial review.\u201d As to the constitutional claim, the Court found<\/a> no connection between previous statements by the President or the Secretary and the termination decision for TPS: \u201cNone of the cited statements by either the President or the Secretary was overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications.\u201d Although the ruling itself does not rely on the standard outlined in the 2018 travel ban case of Trump v. Hawaii<\/a>, where the Court analyzed past statements with claims of religious animus, the people impacted in both cases are denigrated. These cases also perpetuate the long road litigants face in equal protection challenges since the \u201coutrageous discrimination\u201d standard was handed down in Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee<\/a>. There, the Court rejected a selective prosecution claim by a group of noncitizens who argued that they were placed in deportation proceedings for political reasons and offered<\/a> this exception: \u201cWe need not rule out the possibility of a rare case in which the alleged basis of discrimination is so outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote<\/a> a concurrence to convey his position that neither the statutory nor the constitutional claim was reviewable. He expressed<\/a> his position that the \u201cCourt was wrong\u201d in Bolling v. Sharpe<\/a> in reading the Fifth Amendment\u2019s Due Process Clause to impose an equal protection obligation on the federal government. Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote<\/a> a dissent, affirming the administrative law principle favoring judicial review and objecting<\/a> to the majority\u2019s conclusion, overbroad in the dissenters\u2019 view, that \u201cdetermination\u201d includes \u201ceverything the Secretary does under the law.\u201d On the constitutional claim, the dissenting justices concluded<\/a> that respondents more than met their burden, noting that the \u201cevidence they have offered includes statements by the President so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print.\u201d<\/p>\n The outcome in Mullin v. Doe destabilizes the presumption of judicial review and presents long-term implications for thousands of people, their families, and the institutions that employ them. One respondent\u2019s story, recounted in their brief, reflects<\/a> the impact the decision has had on Syrian residents: \u201cRespondent Dr. Sara Doe is a pediatrician who fled Syria in 2014 after two of her brothers were tortured and killed by the Syrian regime and she was targeted for her medical work. She now practices medicine here but will lose work authorization if TPS is terminated.\u201d On a personal note, I have consulted with individuals who hold TPS or have lost the same in the past year and a half. Even those with another legal pathway, such as asylum or a pathway based on employment, face a turbulent immigration system because of sweeping enforcement and policy changes. As a result and as painted<\/a> clearly by the dissent, \u201cHundreds of thousands of lives will be uprooted, most permanently \u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n ![\"Shoba](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/wadhia.jpg\")
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