MIAMI — The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling on Thursday that paves the way for the Trump administration to deport hundreds of thousands of Haitians in this week’s groundbreaking decision on migrant’s Temporary Protective Status — or more commonly referred to as TPS.
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration by allowing the Department of Homeland Security to end temporary legal protections that had shielded people from Haiti and Syria living and working in the U.S. from deportation. The opinion clears the path for the potential removal of more than 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians from the country.
The ruling in Mullin v. Doe — decided along strict ideological lines, with the six conservative justices in the majority and the three liberal justices dissenting — removes the principal legal barrier standing between hundreds of thousands of TPS holders and deportation.
It also removes most judicial oversight of future TPS terminations, a consequence that advocacy groups warned could affect more than 1.3 million immigrants from 17 countries.
What the Court Decided
The case centered on whether federal courts have the authority to review the Department of Homeland Security’s decisions to terminate TPS designations. Lower courts had blocked the terminations while litigation proceeded.
The Supreme Court reversed those orders.
“The TPS statute plainly bars consideration of respondents’ non-constitutional claims,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority, concluding that the law establishing the TPS program did not give courts the authority to second-guess DHS determinations about which countries merit the protected status.
The ruling does not foreclose all legal challenges — constitutional claims, including allegations of racial discrimination, can still be litigated. But it removes the statutory avenue that had been the most effective tool for blocking TPS terminations in court.
The decision could have consequences for more than 1 million immigrants from 17 countries that received TPS benefits because of wars, natural disasters, or other extraordinary conditions. The Trump administration has moved to rescind the legal protections for immigrants from 13 of those countries, putting them at risk of losing work authorizations, arrest, and removal.
The Dissent
The three liberal justices did not hold back. In a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the plaintiffs in the case “deserve better than today’s decision.” Also adding, “True enough that TPS is a temporary program, and that it did not promise the plaintiffs never-ending humanitarian protection,” she wrote. “But the law prevents the program from ending as it likely did here — without the required consultations about country conditions and, as to Haiti, with impermissible race-based considerations tainting the decision.”
Kagan wrote that “the evidence they have offered includes statements by the President so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print.”
“The references — of filth, disease, and primitiveness — are shot through with racial stereotypes and tropes,” she added.
Alito acknowledged the statements but wrote that they “could rest on race-neutral justifications,” including that “the current administration, which has terminated every TPS designation that has come up for renewal, simply opposes the TPS program, at least as it has been implemented in the past.”
What It Means for Miami
The ruling lands with particular weight in South Florida. Miami-Dade County is home to one of the largest Haitian communities in the United States — concentrated in Little Haiti, North Miami, and communities across Broward County. Nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and homecare agencies warned that a sizable share of their employees are Haitian TPS holders.
The ruling takes effect in 32 days — barring any further district court orders on the remaining constitutional claims. TPS holders do not face immediate removal the day their status lapses, but they lose work authorization and become subject to deportation proceedings.
What Comes Next
The House passed a bipartisan measure in April aimed at preserving TPS for Haitians, though the proposal has stalled in the Senate. Congressional action remains the only available legislative remedy — but in the current political environment, Senate passage of any TPS protection measure faces long odds.
For 350,000 Haitians whose temporary protection has just been made terminable without meaningful judicial review, the 32-day clock has started.
Sociedad Media is focused on covering the latest developments across Latin America, U.S. immigration, and their impacts on Miami’s Latino residents.
