US Supreme Court hears TPS cases for Haiti and Syria, potentially affecting 1.3 million people

Washington, DC – The United States Supreme Court has begun hearing a case on whether President Donald Trump's administration can strip temporary legal status from hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians living in the country.

Wednesday's hearing at the nation's highest court specifically centered on whether Trump can terminate "Temporary Protected Status" (TPS) for citizens of these two countries, which was granted when returning to their home country was unsafe.

However, the court's final ruling could have far broader implications, extending beyond the 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians currently living in the US under TPS. The ruling could threaten the future of approximately 1.3 million people from 17 countries currently residing in the US under this status, potentially rendering them undocumented as part of the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign.

Last year, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem terminated TPS for Haiti and Syria, arguing that the program had been "abused and exploited" and that conditions in those countries had improved since the status was first approved.

Noem asserted that recent TPS extensions for Haiti (first granted in 2010) and Syria (granted in 2012) were not "reasonable or necessary."

Critics pointed to ongoing political, humanitarian, and security crises in Haiti, as well as persistent instability in Syria, which has faced Israeli incursions and bouts of violence after emerging from over a decade of war.

Class-action lawsuits filed by Haitians and Syrians allege that the department failed to follow proper procedures when terminating their status. The administration argues that the law creating TPS does not allow courts to review its decision.

The Haitian lawsuit goes further, accusing the Trump administration of being partly motivated by racism. Trump specifically targeted Haitians living in the US during his 2024 campaign, using several racist tropes, including that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were "eating pets."

In February, US District Judge Ana Reyes ruled that the administration's actions may have been partly driven by "racial animus," violating the equal protection guarantees of the US Constitution. Reyes found it likely that Noem made the decision to end TPS "out of hostility to non-white immigrants." A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson criticized the ruling as "lawless activism."

In a rare rebuke of Trump, the US House of Representatives in April passed a bill extending TPS for Haitians until 2029, with 10 Republicans joining Democrats in support. The Senate has not yet voted on the bill.

Since Trump began his second term in January 2025, DHS has also moved to end TPS for Venezuela, Nepal, Nicaragua, Honduras, Afghanistan, Cameroon, South Sudan, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Yemen, though most of these efforts have been temporarily blocked by lower courts.

In October, the Supreme Court issued an unsigned order allowing the Trump administration's cancellation of TPS for Venezuela to stand while legal challenges proceed in lower courts. That status is expected to end on October 2.

Ahead of Wednesday's hearing, Cecilia Gonzalez, a TPS recipient and co-founder of the Venezuelan American Caucus, said the impact of the Supreme Court's ruling will be huge, determining "whether immigrant families who have followed the law and built their lives in this country can be stripped of their protections overnight for political reasons."

"As a Venezuelan, I learned early on that when things get tough, there are only two options: flee or fight," she said in a statement. "I fled once, so now I choose to fight, not just for Venezuelans, but for every immigrant community that deserves dignity, stability, and long-term solutions."