Supreme Court weighs migrant protections for Haitians, Syrians

The Supreme Court considered arguments Wednesday on whether the Trump administration can end Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Haitians and Syrians. The Department of Homeland Security ended protection for people from both countries in 2025, but lower court orders later blocked this.

Congress established TPS in 1990 to temporarily prevent people from being deported into dangerous situations, such as wars or natural disasters. The Secretary of Homeland Security can grant TPS for a particular country for up to 18 months and then either renew or terminate it after that. Nearly 300,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians currently reside in the United States under TPS.

In 2025, the DHS had TPS protections in place for 17 countries but has since moved to end it for nearly all of them.

What were the arguments Wednesday? U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued on behalf of the DHS that the government has power over the TPS program, not the courts. He emphasized that the program was designed to be temporary. Several justices pressed Sauer on arguments from Haiti that DHS’ actions were motivated by racism. Sauer said none of the remarks from the DHS on Haiti indicated any racist motivations.

Ahilan Arulanantham, a professor at the UCLA School of Law, argued the case on behalf of people from Syria while attorney Geoffrey Pipoly represented Haiti. They argued that both countries are still in crisis and people can’t return to them safely. Haitians were first granted protection after a catastrophic earthquake hit the region in 2010. Following this, gang violence has continued to impact the country. Syrians received TPS as a result of a 13-year Syrian civil war. Additionally, if DHS’ actions are allowed to stand, the government would have unprecedented power that the courts couldn’t dispute, Arulanantham said.

Dig deeper: Listen to Mary Muncy’s report for The World and Everything in It on what’s at stake in this case.