Linda Joseph holds a candle during a vigil at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary immigration status, or TPS, for Haitians, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, in North Miami. (AP Photo\/Lynne Sladky, File)<\/small><\/p>\n
2026-06-25T14:30:38Z<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to end<\/a><\/span> legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation.<\/p>\n The 6-3 decision overturns lower court orders and allows the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly end temporary protected status<\/a><\/span>, a program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries<\/a><\/span>. <\/p>\n The Republican administration argued that judges cannot second-guess immigration officials\u2019 decisions about protections that were intended to be temporary. <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n The court\u2019s conservative majority agreed, finding that the law creating the program keeps courts out of the process. \u201cThe Secretary\u2019s TPS designation decisions are not subject to judicial review,\u201d Justice Samuel Alito wrote. <\/p>\n Immigration lawyers said the countries at issue remain unsafe for migrants to return and they argued that the administration ended the protections in an unlawfully hasty process tinged by racial animus. During Trump\u2019s 2024 presidential campaign, he amplified false rumors<\/a><\/span> that Haitian immigrants were abducting and eating dogs and cats.<\/p>\n The court majority found that the statements from Trump and his administration were not \u201covertly racial.\u201d Alito said that Haitian people should not face character attacks. \u201cBut whatever one may think of the cited statements, they are insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti\u2019s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n The court\u2019s three liberal justices dissented, writing that the law does allow for judges to step in if officials sidestep the process for ending the protections. Race, meanwhile, does appear to have played a role, Justice Elena Kagan wrote. <\/p>\n