US Supreme Court Considers Ending Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Syrians

The US Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on Wednesday over whether the Trump administration can terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Syrians and Haitians. This program has shielded them from deportation due to unsafe conditions in their home countries.

TPS holders are allowed to live and work in the US because the government deems their home countries unsafe due to war, political instability, or natural disasters. Over the past year, the Trump administration has sought to scale back the program for several countries, paving the way to deport hundreds of thousands of protected immigrants now in the US.

Last year, the Supreme Court allowed the administration to terminate TPS for over 300,000 Venezuelans under an emergency procedure. Now, the court will examine challenges to the Trump administration's efforts to revoke similar protections for Syrians and Haitians.

Analysts say that if the Supreme Court sides with the Trump administration in its push to cut TPS for Syrians and Haitians, the administration may then attempt to end TPS for all countries. Nearly 1.3 million people were enrolled in TPS at the start of the Trump administration's second term.

The TPS program, established in 1990, does not provide a path to citizenship but allows citizens from designated countries to live and work in the US if they cannot safely return home. TPS designations can be renewed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Haitians have been protected from deportation under TPS since 2010, and Syrians since 2012. Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed a bill extending TPS protections for Haitian immigrants by three years.

Last year, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stated that the new Syrian government was moving toward "stable institutional governance" following the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in late 2024. Noem also argued there were "no extraordinary or temporary conditions" in Haiti preventing Haitians from "returning safely," despite significant ongoing gang violence in the country.

Some Haitians with TPS have sued the Trump administration in federal court in Washington DC, and a group of Syrians with TPS have filed a lawsuit in New York. The two cases have been consolidated for consideration by the Supreme Court.

Over the past year, the Trump administration has sought to remove protections for people from 13 different TPS-designated countries, as part of a broader effort to undermine legal immigrants in the US. TPS designations that have been successfully terminated by the administration include those for Afghanistan, Honduras, Venezuela, and Yemen.

The Trump administration's efforts to end TPS for Myanmar, Ethiopia, and South Sudan are also being challenged in court.