Demonstrators chant and hold signs outside the U.S. Supreme Court on April 29, 2026 in Washington, DC. The court heard arguments challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s ending Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from Haiti and Syria. (Photo: Tom Brenner/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court appeared ready Wednesday to uphold the Trump administration’s efforts to end momentary legal protections for 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians.
This decision may also affect several other lawsuits related to the so-called momentary protected status pending in lower courts. The lawsuits challenge the Trump administration’s procedures to end the country’s protections, which have significantly increased the risk of deportation for more than a million immigrants.
So far, the Trump administration has ended TPS directions for 13 countries, out of 17 that were vigorous at the beginning of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Speaking on behalf of the Trump administration, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer said that under the law, federal courts cannot review the executive branch’s decision to end or extend TPS designations.
“They are questioning the kind of foreign policy judgments that have traditionally been entrusted to political authorities,” Sauer said of TPS recipients who seek to remain in the United States.
But two lawyers, Ahilan Arulanantham, representing the Syrians, and Geoffrey Pipoly, representing the Haitians, argued that their clients could challenge the lack of due process that then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem took to terminate the TPS designation.
Lawyers say this would mean failing to review national conditions before making a decision.
Most of the questioning came from the three liberal judges, who questioned and pressed Sauer about Trump’s racist remarks disparaging Haitians.
The conservative justices, with a 6-3 majority, asked Sauer only a few questions and appeared skeptical of Arulanantham and Pipoly’s argument, signaling that they may already agree with the Trump administration’s position that courts cannot review TPS terminations.
A decision is not expected until June or early July. Both cases will return to lower courts for continued substantive arguments.
However, if the Supreme Court agrees with the Trump administration, TPS holders from Haiti and Syria could be deported.
The attempt to end TPS designation is part of President Donald Trump’s broader plan efforts to restrict immigration and strip people of legal statuscreating thousands of newly unauthorized immigrants to be subjected to mass deportation.
How TPS works
TPS is a humanitarian program created by Congress in 1990 to provide momentary protection for citizens from countries deemed too threatening to return to due to violence, disasters, or other extreme circumstances.
TPS holders must pass a background check to obtain work authorization and legal protection. Each renewal takes between six and 12 to 18 months.
These decisions rest with the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, who typically consults with the Department of State to assess domestic conditions and determine whether the status requires extension. Decisions will depend on whether conditions remain unsafe for migrant return.
Sauer argued that courts cannot control the final decision, including the procedural decisions that led to it.
Arulanantham claimed that the position was a “double-edged sword”. Another administration could easily come along and a modern DHS secretary could theoretically utilize TPS to grant legal status to immigrants who are in the country illegally, and the decision would not be subject to judicial review, Arulanantham said.
TPS holders argue before the Supreme Court that Noem did not consult with appropriate authorities, such as the Department of State, before deciding to end TPS designations. They argue that it did not follow the proper procedure, but do not question the possibility of reconsidering the decision to terminate the agreement with the country.
Arulanantham said with Syria that if Noem were to review a State Department report advising people against traveling to the country due to armed conflict and still decide not to renew the protection, that decision would not be subject to reassessment.
“You can check whether he is actually asking anything and receiving any information about national conditions,” he said.
Sauer said the legal argument is “worthless” because “TPS’s statute does not micro-regulate the scope of consultation with other agencies.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett pressed Arulanantham on why challenging the review of how the TPS termination ended matters at all.
“If this is just sort of checking the boxes, why would Congress allow an overhaul of the procedural aspect when everyone really cares more about the substance?” she asked.
Arulanantham stated that this is “because Congress… and the millions of people living with TPS have some faith in the government and believe that decisions will be better if there is consultation.”
He said: “Our view is that even if things go back to normal, at least people will know that someone was talking to someone else.”
Trump’s “racial animus” was cited
Pipoly argued that ending TPS for Haiti was based on racial animus against Haitians, referencing the president’s own words in which he described the Caribbean island as a “shithole.”
“The real reason for terminating the agreement is the president’s racist dislike for non-white immigrants, and in particular his clear dislike for Haitians,” he said.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor asked Sauer about Trump’s comments.
“We have a president who at one point said that Haiti was a ‘dirty, filthy and disgusting country,’ I quote him, and where he complained that the United States was accepting people from such countries and not from Norway, Sweden or Denmark,” she said. “I don’t understand why this one statement isn’t the best example… of showing that a discriminatory purpose may have played a role in this decision.”
Sauer argued that none of these statements “mention or address race” and that instead the president was referring to “issues like crime, poverty, welfare dependency.”
In a lower court that blocked the Trump administration from ending TPS for Haiti, federal judge Ana Reyes found that there was racial hostility in the government’s decision to end humanitarian protections.
This isn’t the first time Trump has tried to end TPS for Haiti – he did so during his first administration in 2018, but was blocked by the courts.
Haitian workers in the US
The day before Wednesday’s oral arguments, a handful of Democratic lawmakers rallied with home care advocates outside the U.S. Capitol to emphasize the importance of TPS workers. More than 20,000 Haitians work in health care, – says immigration group FWD.us.
“Right now, more than a million people are at risk of being removed from their homes, separated from their families or having their lives uprooted because of Trump’s cruel and illegal attempt to strip them of their temporary protected status,” Massachusetts Republican Ayanna Pressley said during a press conference Tuesday.
Pressley said thousands of TPS holders are vital workers, including one beneficiary from Haiti who cared for the congresswoman’s mother, who died of cancer.
“It was the Haitian nurses who prayed for my mother, sang songs to her, and who lovingly oiled her scalp and braided her hair,” Pressley said. “Everyone who calls this village home benefits from TPS and will be harmed by this solution.”
Pressley led a bipartisan push in the House to approve a measure that would extend TPS for Haiti to three years.
Ten Republicans joined the Democrats, including one independent who works with the GOP approval of the bill earlier this month.
While the bill passed in the House of Representatives, it would require 60 votes in the Republican-controlled Senate. Moreover, if Congress had managed to pass the bill, it would likely have been rejected by Trump.
“We demand that the Supreme Court uphold the law, save lives and protect our communities,” Pressley said. “Sending vulnerable families to countries like Haiti, Venezuela and Syria that are experiencing terrible humanitarian crises is unwise, shameful, illegal and preventable.”
