The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to strip hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants of their humanitarian status to protect them from deportation, further advancing the president’s hardline stance on immigration.The Supreme Court’s conservative justices voted 6-3 to overturn a federal judge’s decision that halted the government’s move to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians.Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the ruling, wrote that the court could not review the administration’s decision on TPS, which could lead to legal challenges to strip any country of that status. “The laws governing TPS expressly prohibit such judicial review,” Alito wrote.
Kagan dissents: ‘Race plays a role’
Justice Elena Kagan, who joined liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson in the dissent, said the evidence that race played a role in the government’s Haiti decisions was clear. Kagan highlighted several examples of Trump’s previous rhetoric, including his false claims during his 2024 re-election campaign that Haitian immigrants were eating dogs and cats in Ohio and that Haitian immigrants were “like a death wish to our country.”“The content — filthy, diseased and raw — was filled with racial stereotypes and tropes,” Kagan said. “It’s hard to imagine any white community making such statements today.”Alito said in his ruling that none of the remarks cited were “clearly racial” and could be “founded on race-neutral grounds.”
Miller says it’s safe to return to Haiti
White House adviser Stephen Miller said the U.S. is completely closed to asylum seekers and that Haitian refugees with TPS should leave the country, dismissing concerns about violence in Haiti by comparing its crime rate to U.S. cities. “In fact, there are areas in Haiti that may have higher crime rates, and guess what? There are areas in Chicago that have equally high crime rates,” Miller said.“The doors of the United States are completely closed to asylum seekers,” Miller said, adding that the government has implemented protocols for sending asylum seekers to other countries.The dispute has potentially wide-ranging implications, affecting 1.3 million immigrants from all 17 countries currently designated for TPS. The Trump administration says such protections are always temporary. Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Branch applauded the ruling, saying the Justice Department “successfully defended the position that TPS was always temporary.”Viles Dorsainvil, a Haitian TPS holder and co-founder of the Haiti Support Center in Springfield, Ohio, said the ruling sent thousands of families into an immediate state of fear. “Haiti is not safe, and everyone knows that. The court’s ruling will not change the reality on the ground, nor will it change the contributions we make in the United States,” Dorsevier said.In another 6-3 ruling, the court sided with the government, defending its authority to turn away asylum seekers because officials believe U.S.-Mexico border crossings are overburdened and unable to handle additional claims. The policy, known as “metering,” allows U.S. immigration officials to stop asylum seekers at the border and refuse to process their applications indefinitely.
