The U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority appears poised to support the Trump administration's plan to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for over a million migrants from countries like Haiti and Syria, potentially leading to mass deportations.
Potential mass deportations of over a million migrants
Affected migrants include those from Haiti and Syria
TPS provides legal status due to crises in home countries
Mentioned in this story
U.S. Supreme CourtHaitiSyria
Temporary Protected Status
The U.S. Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court
Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images
Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images
The Supreme Court's conservative majority seemed ready Wednesday to allow the Trump administration to potentially proceed with mass deportations of more than a million foreign nationals, including those from Haiti and Syria, who live and work legally in the United States.
Congress enacted the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990, and every president since then — Republican and Democrat — has embraced TPS. President Trump, however, is trying to end it.
What is Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and who qualifies for it?
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is a legal designation that allows individuals from certain countries experiencing crises, such as war or natural disasters, to live and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation.
How many migrants could be affected by the Supreme Court's decision on TPS?
The Supreme Court's decision could potentially impact over a million foreign nationals currently living in the U.S. under TPS.
Which countries' nationals are likely to lose TPS if the Supreme Court rules against it?
Nationals from countries such as Haiti and Syria are among those who may lose their Temporary Protected Status if the Supreme Court rules in favor of ending TPS.
What are the implications of ending TPS for migrants in the U.S.?
Ending TPS could lead to mass deportations of migrants who have been living and working legally in the U.S., significantly affecting their lives and communities.
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On Wednesday his solicitor general, D. John Sauer, told the justices that the statute clearly bars any court review of the administration's decisions. And he dismissed the idea that a separate law established to provide procedural fairness does not allow the courts to review the Homeland Security agency's decision-making either. Pressed by the court's three liberal justices, Sauer insisted that the courts cannot review anything.
"None of those procedural steps required by the statue are reviewable. That's your position?" asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
"Correct," responded Sauer.
"What you're basically saying is that Congress wrote a statute for no purpose," Sotomayor said.
Justice Elena Kagan noted that under the statute the secretary of Homeland Security is supposed to consult with the U.S. State Department about what the conditions are in those countries that people have been forced to flee. What if she didn't do that at all, Kagan asked. Or what if she asked, but the response from the State Department came back: "Wasn't that baseball game last night great!"
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked what would happen if the secretary used a Ouija board to make decisions?
To all these hypotheticals, Solicitor General Sauer stood firm. That prompted this from Sotomayor: "Now, we have a president saying at one point that Haiti is a 'filthy, dirty, and disgusting s-hole country.' I'm quoting him. He declared illegal immigrants, which he associated with TPS, as poisoning the blood of America. I don't see how that one statement is not a prime example … showing that a discriminatory purpose may have played a part in this decision."
Sauer pushed back, noting that Kristi Noem, the then-DHS secretary, had not mentioned race at all. That prompted this response from Justice Jackson, the only Black woman on the court, "So the position of the United States is that we have an actual racial epithet that we aren't allowed to look at all the context."
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the mother of two adopted Haitian children, interjected at that point to clarify the administration's position. Are you conceding that individuals with TPS status could bring a challenge based on race discrimination? she asked.
Sauer appeared to concede the point.
Representing the Haitians, lawyer Geoffrey Pipoly described the administration's review as "a sham."
"The true reason for the termination [of TPS status] is the president's racial animus toward non-white immigrants and bare dislike of Haitians in particular," Pipoly said. "The secretary herself described people from Haiti" and from other non-white countries as "killers, leeches, saying, 'We don't want them, not one,'" while "simultaneously enacting another humanitarian form of relief for white and only white South Africans."
That was too much for Justice Samuel Alito who asked Pipoly, "Do you think that if you put Syrians, Turks, Greeks and other people who live around the Mediterranean in a line-up, do you think you could say those people are … non-white?"
An uncomfortable Pipoly resisted categorizing each group until Alito got to his own roots.
"How about southern Italians?" Alito inquired, prompting laughter in the courtroom.
Responded Pipoly: "Certainly 120 years ago when we had our last wave of European immigration, southern Italians were not considered white. … Our concept of these things evolves over time."
At the end of Wednesday's court session, one thing was clear: President Trump may be furious at some of the conservative justices he appointed for invalidating his tariffs, but for the most part, he is getting his way. Especially in light of the court's 6-to-3 decision, announced Wednesday, which effectively guts what remains of the landmark Voting Rights Act, once celebrated as a signature achievement of American Democracy.
