By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON, March 16 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday it will hear arguments over the legality of a move by Donald Trump’s administration to revoke temporary legal protections for more than 350,000 Haitians and about 6,100 Syrians living in the United States, part of the Republican president’s mass deportation agenda.
The justices for now kept in place two judicial orders that have temporarily halted the administration’s move to end Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Haitian and Syrian nationals.
The administration had asked the justices to let the terminations for Haiti and Syria take effect while the cases proceed. It has repeatedly turned to the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, to permit it to revoke TPS protections that provide eligible migrants with work authorization and temporary protection from deportation.
The court in October let the administration terminate TPS for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants, acting without hearing arguments in that dispute. The administration had requested that the court hear arguments in the Haiti and Syria cases. The justices will do so next month.
Under Trump, the Department of Homeland Security has moved to end TPS status for about a dozen countries. The protections are available to people whose home country has experienced a natural disaster, armed conflict or other extraordinary event.
Kristi Noem, a Trump appointee then serving as secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, determined last November that there were “no extraordinary and temporary conditions” in Haiti that would prevent Haitian migrants from returning to the Caribbean country. The U.S. State Department currently warns against travel to Haiti “due to kidnapping, crime, terrorist activity, civil unrest and limited healthcare.”
Haitians were first given TPS in 2010 under Democratic former President Barack Obama after a devastating earthquake struck their country.
The U.S. government repeatedly extended the status, most recently under Democratic former President Joe Biden’s administration, which cited “simultaneous economic, security, political and health crises” in Haiti, fueled by gangs and a lack of a functioning government. That extension had given Haitians living in the United States protections through February 3, 2026.
‘HOSTILITY TO NONWHITE IMMIGRANTS’
Washington-based U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes ruled in February in a lawsuit brought by Haitians challenging the administration’s move. Reyes found that Noem likely violated the procedures required to terminate the protected status of Haitian immigrants as well as the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law.
“Plaintiffs charge that Secretary Noem preordained her termination decision and did so because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants. This seems substantially likely,” Reyes wrote.
Referencing a December social media post by Noem, Reyes added, “Kristi Noem has a (U.S. Constitution) First Amendment right to call immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement junkies and any other inapt name she wants. Secretary Noem, however, is constrained by both our Constitution and the (Administrative Procedure Act) to apply faithfully the facts to the law in implementing the TPS program.”
Trump fired Noem on March 5. Noem’s TPS decisions were not at issue in her dismissal.
Lower federal appeals courts declined to halt the order issued by Reyes as well as a similar one issued by another judge in a separate legal challenge by a group of Syrian migrants.
The Syrian migrants sued after Noem announced in September that Syria’s TPS designation would end. Noem said that the situation there “no longer meets the criteria for an ongoing armed conflict that poses a serious threat to the personal safety of returning Syrian nationals.”
TPS was first extended to Syrians in 2012 during Obama’s administration after Syria plunged into a civil war that culminated with the toppling of President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
In November, U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan blocked the administration from terminating Syria’s TPS designation. Failla said the Department of Homeland Security had not followed proper procedures for revoking temporary status, including reviewing conditions in Syria, and that the decision was improperly influenced by politics.
The Justice Department told the Supreme Court in a filing that lower courts were flouting its prior orders in the cases involving Venezuela’s TPS designation, and cited “persistent disregard” by lower courts for the Supreme Court’s actions.
Lawyers for the Haitian plaintiffs on Monday said the administration “insists that it can violate statute and that the courts can do nothing about it.”
“That is an extreme position that should concern all,” the lawyers, Geoff Pipoly and Andrew Tauber, said in a statement.
The Justice Department declined to comment beyond what it has said it court filings.
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)
