The Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a key win on Thursday on his immigration policy, allowing his administration to end temporary protected status for people from Haiti and Syria.
The high court ruled 6-3, on ideological lines, that the homeland security secretary’s determination on whether to end TPS for a country cannot be challenged. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion ruling in favor of the federal government, rejecting arguments from Haitians and Syrians that the process that led to the secretary’s determination could be legally challenged.
“In these cases, we consider whether respondents, who challenge the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for aliens from Syria and Haiti, are entitled to orders postponing the terminations during litigation,” Alito wrote. “We hold that they are not.
“The TPS statute plainly bars consideration of respondents’ non-constitutional claims. It allows ‘no judicial review of any determination … with respect to the … termination’ of a TPS designation. The term ‘determination’ can be used to describe either an individual decision or the whole process leading to a final decision, and under either understanding of the term, §1254a(b)(5)(A) squarely bars all of respondents’ non-constitutional claims.”
TRUMP’S TPS IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN FACES SUPREME COURT TEST
During oral arguments in April, the high court appeared ready to give the administration the green light to end TPS for people from Haiti and Syria, expressing deep skepticism toward the arguments of lawyers seeking to keep it alive. Alito expressed concern that affirming that judges can review parts of the process to end TPS could “blow a hole” in the part of the underlying law that explicitly bars judicial review.
While the consolidated cases Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Moit looked at whether federal law prohibits courts from reviewing Trump’s decision to rescind TPS for people from Haiti and Syria, the high court’s decision will have impacts beyond the two countries. The Supreme Court’s ruling will have a direct effect on similar litigation over Trump’s bid to end TPS for immigrants from other countries, including Venezuela, South Sudan, and Somalia.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.