By Nana Karikari, Senior Global Affairs Correspondent
The United States Supreme Court issued a significant ruling on Thursday, clearing the path for the Trump administration to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for approximately 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. The 6-3 decision, divided along ideological lines, effectively allows the government to move forward with plans to strip these individuals of legal protections, potentially subjecting them to deportation.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito asserted that the judiciary overstepped its authority by attempting to review determinations made by the Department of Homeland Security. Alito noted that the relevant law “expressly restricts” courts from reviewing decisions regarding the termination or extension of TPS protections. Regarding allegations that the removal of protections for Haitians was motivated by racial discrimination, the majority found that the statements cited by plaintiffs were not “overtly racial” and were “insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people.”
In the lower courts, the validity of the administration’s actions had been heavily scrutinized. A Washington-based judge concluded in February that former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had failed to follow the correct procedures in terminating TPS for Haiti, finding evidence that the decision was based on “anti-black and anti-Haitian animus.” The judge pointed, among other things, to an X post from December in which Noem, referring to immigrants in general, said: “WE DON’T WANT THEM. NOT ONE,” as well as Trump’s 2018 statement that Haiti is a “shithole country.”
Humanitarian groups and legal counsel respond
The ruling has sparked immediate and intense criticism from advocacy groups and legal representatives. The State Department currently advises against all travel to both nations, as both are included on its “do not travel” list. Regarding the situation in Haiti, the State Department notes, “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.” For Syria, the department maintains that “no part of Syria is safe from violence.”
Geoff Pipoly and Andy Tauber, lead counsel for the Haitian challengers, stated, “simply put, the Supreme Court’s ruling will directly result in thousands of innocent people dying violent, needless deaths.” They further argued, “this 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.”
The administration’s move against TPS is part of a broader shift in policy. The Trump administration has also withdrawn TPS status from nationals of other countries, including Afghanistan and Cameroon. According to the National Immigration Forum, as of March 2025, approximately 1.3 million people from 17 countries held TPS. In a separate effort to implement hard-line immigration policies, the administration also terminated a Biden-era program that allowed more than 500,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to remain in the U.S. while their claims were adjudicated—a measure the Supreme Court also allowed to proceed last year.
Dahlia Doe, a Syrian TPS recipient and lead plaintiff, highlighted the personal impact of the verdict. “Today’s decision is a devastating blow to me and thousands of TPS holders and our families who built our lives in this country in good faith,” Doe stated. She added, “we 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. We are parents, workers, students, caregivers, and neighbors, and despite this disappointing decision, our contributions and our humanity remain unchanged.”
Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, condemned the ruling, describing it as a “devastating betrayal of Haitian families who have lived, worked, and contributed to this country for years — only to be cast out based on anti-Black immigration sentiment.” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, noted the Court’s focus on jurisdiction rather than safety. “Importantly, the Court did not find that Haiti or Syria is safe. It found that the question is beyond the reach of judicial review,” she said. “Our immediate concern is what happens to these families and children should they be forced back to the dire circumstances that have long prevented their safe return.”
Justices clash over presidential rhetoric
The decision also ignited a heated debate among the justices regarding the role of presidential rhetoric in legal challenges. Justice Elena Kagan took the rare step of criticizing the majority for declining to include the President’s own words in their opinion. Kagan described Trump’s remarks as “so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print.” She explicitly included the President’s comments, including his claims that Haitians in Ohio were “eating the dogs … . They’re eating the cats. They’re eating—they’re eating the pets of the people.” Kagan asserted, “the statements fairly shout, in their racial undertones and overtones alike, that race entered into the president’s resolve to remove Haitians from this country.”
Supreme Court rules on asylum metering
In a separate decision delivered the same day, the Supreme Court authorized the Trump administration to revive a controversial policy known as “metering.” This policy allows immigration authorities to limit the number of asylum seekers permitted to request protection at ports of entry, effectively turning some migrants away before they can legally claim they have arrived in the United States. Justice Alito, writing for the majority, termed the issue “straightforward,” stating, “in ordinary speech, no one would say that a person ‘arrives in’ a place . . . before the person enters that place.”
This ruling drew a scathing dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who read her opinion from the bench. “The consequences of today’s decision are predictable,” Sotomayor wrote. “More people will die.” Invoking the 1939 case of the MS St. Louis, which carried Jewish refugees turned away by the U.S., she stated, “if the refugees on the MS St. Louis were to walk up to a port of entry on our southern border today, the majority’s interpretation would allow immigration officers to refuse even to consider their asylum applications by physically blocking them from stepping foot onto US soil.”
White House stance on immigration decisions
The White House welcomed both rulings as a “tremendous win.” Spokeswoman Abigail Jackson stated that the decision regarding TPS “affirmed what President Trump has always maintained: temporary protected status is, by definition, temporary.” She added that the administration is committed to “restoring integrity to our immigration system” and addressing what it terms “egregious abuses” of the asylum process.
As the judicial term draws to a close, these rulings underscore the stark divide within the high court regarding the limits of executive power and the federal government’s authority over immigration. While the administration views these decisions as a vital restoration of border integrity and statutory compliance, critics maintain that the loss of legal protections and the implementation of restrictive processing measures present significant humanitarian risks. The long-term impact on the affected immigrant populations remains uncertain, as the administration prepares to navigate the logistical and diplomatic complexities of these policy shifts.
