Effort to end legal protections

Supreme Court to hear arguments on Trump effort to end legal protections for Haitians, Syrians

The administration had asked the high court to end protections for about 350,000 Haitians and about 6,000 Syrians.

By Josh Gerstein

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether President Donald Trump’s administration acted legally when it sought to end deportation protection for thousands of citizens of Haiti and Syria who were permitted to remain in the U.S. due to unrest in their home countries.

The justices also fast-tracked the lawsuits challenging Trump’s attempts to end “temporary protected status,” with oral argument set to take place late next month in the last week of scheduled arguments this term.

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The Trump administration had urged the justices to lift lower court orders blocking the effort to strip about 350,000 Haitians and about 6,000 Syrians of so-called TPS privileges, a legal protection that allows immigrants whose home countries are facing humanitarian crises to live and work in the U.S. legally. However, the high court granted an alternative proposal from Solicitor General D. John Sauer to quickly take up the cases on the merits.

Immigrant rights advocates opposed the high court getting involved in the disputes.

But the court effectively granted a reprieve that could last several months for Haitian and Syrian TPS recipients. The justices will hear oral arguments in April with a decision that will likely come by the end of June. Based on the high court’s recent track record, the TPS holders appear to face long odds.

Last year, the Supreme Court stepped in twice to lift lower court orders that blocked the Trump administration from ending TPS for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans. Both rulings appeared to split the court squarely, 6-3, along ideological lines. The only public dissent came from the court’s Democratic appointees.

Trump and his advisers have vowed to end TPS designations, noting that they have proven to be anything but temporary in many instances. Due to repeated extensions under Democratic and Republican administrations, some immigrants have had TPS protection for more than two decades.

However, critics of the Trump administration’s actions contend officials moved with such haste that they failed to give any serious consideration to the conditions on the ground in the countries at issue.

Haiti’s government has been in chaos for years, with kidnappings, murders and gang violence intensifying in the wake of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. A legal brief TPS advocates filed with the high court Monday noted that the State Department strongly advises Americans against traveling to Haiti and gravely warns that those who do should “leave DNA samples with your medical provider and dental records with your family in case it is necessary for your family to access them to identify your remains.”

Civil war broke out in Syria in 2011 and continued through 2024, when the hardline government of President Bashar Assad collapsed, prompting celebration in many parts of the country. A new transitional government that took power last year has been embraced by many Western countries.

However, the new government is comprised largely of officials formerly associated with a spinoff of al Qaeda. It has been accused of failing to prevent, or being complicit in, massacres in minority Alawite communities. The State Department has the highest level of warning against Americans traveling to Syria, advising them not to do so for any reason. “No part of Syria is safe from violence,” the warning says.

People with TPS can also apply for permanent legal status like asylum. Advocates say many with TPS have filed such applications, particularly as the Trump administration’s attempts to end the designations loomed.