Protections for Haitians, Syrians can end
Supreme Court allows Trump to expose thousands to deportation
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WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation.
The 6-3 decision overturns lower court orders and allows the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly end temporary protected status, a program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries.
It marked another victory at the high court for Republican President Donald Trump's sweeping crackdown on immigration. Though the
conservative-dominated court has put the brakes on some of Trump's immigration policies, it handed him a second win Thursday in a decision clearing the way for the revival of a policy restricting immigrants seeking asylum.
The court's conservative majority found that the law doesn't allow courts to question the process that immigration authorities use to revoke the protections.
The opinion from Justice Samuel Alito also brushed aside arguments that Trump's derogatory comments about Haitians showed the decision was unlawfully tinged by prejudice. He called the statements "insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti's TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people."
Justice Elena Kagan forcefully disagreed, calling Trump's comments "so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print." Her dissent pointed out that Trump had said Haitians in the U.S. "probably have AIDS," and he also amplified false rumors during the 2024 campaign that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were abducting and eating dogs and cats.
Federal authorities deny that prejudice played a role, and argued that TPS was supposed to be temporary but has lasted over a decade in some cases.
James Percival, DHS general counsel, applauded Thursday's ruling. He said the program had become "de facto amnesty. This is a win for the rule of law and common sense."
In a Fox News interview Thursday, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called it "a victory 10 years in the making," saying it allows Haitian migrants to "finally" be removed.
Lawyers said Haitian immigrants would be in danger if they are sent back. "Simply put, the Supreme Court's ruling will directly result in thousands of innocent people dying violent, needless deaths," Geoff Pipoly and Andy Tauber said.
They urged the Senate to approve an extension of deportation protections for Haitians that passed the House on a rare bipartisan vote in April.
"Families are here, kids are going to school, parents are going into work, folks are trying to commute, and it's like the Supreme Court just put all those activities on stop and put folks in limbo," said Viles Dorsainvil, who runs a support center for Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.
People with TPS are also a key part of the workforce in long-term care facilities, an industry group said. "This would be a dreadful loss for all seniors in our community," said Rita Siebenaler, a resident at Goodwin Living, a senior living community in Virginia.
The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court after judges postponed the end of the program for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. The high court sided with the administration before and allowed the end of the program for people from Venezuela.
Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, Homeland Security has moved to end the protections, including some that had been in place for more than a decade, for people from 13 countries.
Immigration lawyers said the terminations were made through an improperly fast process, even though countries such as Haiti and Syria remain dangerous. Four Haitian women who were deported from the United States in February were later found beheaded and dumped in a river several months later, lawyers said in court documents.