WASHINGTON —The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration could go ahead and yank temporary protected status (TPS) for thousands of Syrian and Haitian migrants, paving the way for their deportation.
In a 6-3 decision, the high court ruled that the statute behind TPS does not allow for judicial review, and therefore, lower courts can’t stay the administration’s decision to remove deportation protections for more than 6,000 Syrians and 350,000 Haitians living in the US.
“The TPS statute plainly bars consideration of respondents’ non-constitutional claims. It allows ‘no judicial review of any determination … with respect to the … termination’ of a TPS designation,” Republican-appointed Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority.
“Under either of these definitions, [of determination, the statute] bars respondents’ non-constitutional claims,” he further explained. “Each claim concerns a discrete decision made by the Secretary—for example, her decision to consult the State Department in a particular manner and her decision that country conditions in Syria and Haiti justified termination of their TPS designations.”
The two cases revolved around two different lawsuits from groups of Syrians and Haitians, who both contended that the move was born of unlawful racial animus rather than geopolitical consideration.
The lower courts had kept the protections in place while the case was pending.
The Supreme Court previously cleared the way for the Trump administration to pull TPS for 600,000 Venezuelans in the US last year.
TPS had been in effect for Haitians since 2010 after an earthquake rocked the country, and for Syrians since 2012 due to the oppression of the Bashar al-Assad regime.
Plaintiffs had cited remarks from President Trump and then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to argue that the decision to yank TPS for Haitians in particular was fueled by racial animus.
They also argued that the Trump administration did not make a serious assessment of whether it was safe for those migrants to be sent back to their home country.
Over 1.3 million nationals across 17 countries received TPS protections as of March of last year, per the National Immigration Forum. Under statutory law, administrations can “designate” countries for migrants to get temporary protection.
TPS has been in effect since 1990, and allows eligible migrants to seek work authorization for over a year and a half.
During oral arguments, several Democrat-appointed justices revisited Trump’s “s—thole countries” remarks as well as his comments about “poisoning the blood‘ of Americans and past riffs about “bad genes” to suggest the policy change was motivated by racism.
“Now we have a president saying at one point that Haiti is a ‘filthy, dirty and disgusting s—hole country,’” Democrat-appointed Justice Sonia Sotomayor said. “I’m quoting him.”
“He declared illegal immigrants, which he associated with TPS, as poisoning the blood of America,” she went on. “I don’t see how that one statement is not … showing that a discriminatory purpose may have played a part in this decision.”
But Alito held in his opinion that the plaintiffs in the case revolving around Haitian migrants undermined their own claims of racism.
“Ironically, one of respondents’ other arguments undermines the equal protection claim by offering a strong, race-neutral explanation for Haiti’s termination: namely, that the current administration, which has terminated every TPS designation that has come up for renewal, simply opposes the TPS program, at least as it has been implemented in the past,” he wrote.
Democrat-appointed Justice Elena Kagan penned a dissent backed by her two other liberal peers.
“Both courts concluded that the Secretary probably violated the TPS statute by ordering the terminations without first consulting with other agencies about current country conditions,” Kagan stressed.
“The majority asserts that the Secretary’s compliance with the TPS statute is in every respect unreviewable by the courts. But in fact the statute allows judicial review of whether the Secretary adhered to the procedures it mandates—which is what the plaintiffs dispute here.”
Kagan further argued that the evidence of racism motivating the administration’s decision is “plain to see, in the President’s statements, which the majority (and for that matter, his own lawyers) cannot even bear to repeat.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) slammed the decision as a “betrayal of our values and of the promise our country made to protect people from displacement, repression, and harm.”
“Hundreds of thousands of TPS holders have built families, careers, businesses, and communities here in the United States,” James argued. “They are our neighbors, coworkers, classmates, and loved ones, and they deserve more than to have their lives thrown into chaos by a cruel and reckless administration.”
The Supreme Court had consolidated complaints about TPS being stripped from Haitians and Syrians into Mullin v. Doe. Its decision means that the lower court block on the Trump administration’s move is reversed and the cases are sent back for further review.
