The Trump administration’s massive deportation agenda sailed ahead on Thursday when the Supreme Court ruled to allow the Trump administration to strip nearly 400,000 people lawfully living in the United States of temporary protected status.

The combination cases, Mullin v. Dahlia Doe and Trump v. Fritz Emmanuel Lesly Miot, were before the justices in April for arguments and specifically focused on whether former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem followed the law when terminating temporary protected status for Syria and Haiti. Noem went on a tear of terminations starting last year and attempted to end protections for 13 of 17 countries who had received the designation.

Temporary protected status, or TPS, was developed by Congress in 1990 and seeks to provide relief to people who can not stay in their home country due to armed conflict, natural disaster or other extraordinary and temporary conditions. Under the law, the homeland security secretary is responsible for assessing whether a country can be removed from the TPS list, but that decision must be made in consultation with other government agencies.

Doe and Miot argued Noem failed to follow this basic protocol when terminating status for Haiti and Syria and instead dropped them from the list solely because of a long-running racial animus toward nonwhite immigrants espoused by President Donald Trump.

In the 6-3 decision, written by Justice Samuel Alito, the majority declared that Noem’s decision was not subject to review by the courts, and that Doe and Miot could not prove racial bias and were not entitled to interim protections.

“The Court assumes for the sake of argument that heightened scrutiny applies and that it must determine whether a ‘discriminatory purpose [was] a motivating factor in the decision’ to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation. ... Because application of that standard calls for consideration of the context in which a challenged statement was made ... the immigration context is an important factor. None of the cited statements by either the President or the Secretary was overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications,” Alito wrote.

“But whatever one may think of the cited statements, they are insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people.”

There are 1.3 million TPS holders living in the United States. At least 363,000 Haitian TPS-holders and 7,000 Syrian TPS-holders live in the U.S. Last October, the high court agreed to terminate status for Venezuela, a move that wrested protections away from at least 300,000 Venezuelans lawfully living in the U.S.

Trump has regularly denigrated immigrants and, from the campaign trail in 2023, said that they were “poisoning the blood of our country.” He regularly cast racist aspersions at Haitians while campaigning in 2024, falsely claiming Haitians were eating people’s pets. In December, Noem referred to immigrants entering the U.S. as “killers, leeches and entitlement junkies” and the president has also referred to Haiti as a “shithole.”

But this was not “overtly racial,” according to the majority.

“For example, one may oppose TPS and favor tighter restrictions on immigration for economic or other reasons that have nothing to do with race,” Alito wrote. “And a person without racial bias can provide a harshly unfavorable description of living conditions in some of the countries with TPS designations. The criteria for TPS designations guarantee that many, if not most, designated countries have such characteristics.”

After adding that “many Americans of all races” would find the poverty and conditions in Haiti, for example, “unquestionably difficult,” the justice noted that “poverty and deprivation are no reflection on character and there is no justification for denigrating the character of Haitians who suffer from and bear no responsibility for their country’s ills.”

Alito acknowledged how more than 500 Haitians fought to “support American independence at the Battle of Savannah in 1779” and “have made many positive contributions to the U.S. from the very beginning and they continue to do so today.” But the ruling nonetheless puts the hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in the U.S. with TPS in a potentially life-or-death situation, given Haiti’s poverty and political unrest following years of civil disturbances and destruction from a devastating hurricane in 2010, and effectively unwinds the lives they have created for years.

“Political discourse by prominent public figures is increasingly couched in terms that would have scandalized the public just a short time ago, and the statements cited by Miot respondents — especially those concerning Haiti and Haitian immigrants to this country — exemplify this development. But whatever one may think of the cited statements, they are insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people,” he wrote.

Justice Clarence Thomas concurred with the opinion, while Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

Kagan took a shot directly at Alito’s claim that there was no racial animus guiding Noem’s decision-making.

“The majority claims to see no evidence that race played any role in the Haiti decision. But the evidence is there, plain to see, in the President’s statements, which the majority (and for that matter, his own lawyers) cannot even bear to repeat,” Kagan wrote.

“While the Supreme Court failed to uphold the separation of powers at the center of our Constitution, it is not too late for Congress to act. If it doesn’t, everyone will suffer the consequences.”

After the ruling was issued Thursday, Lupe Aguirre, deputy director of U.S. litigation at the International Refugee Assistance Project, told HuffPost the decision gave the Trump administration “carte blanche to blanche to ignore Congress, undermine the rule of law, and detain and deport our neighbors.”

“The imminent loss of TPS is a recipe for chaos, cruelty, and yet another blow to our democracy. In what could be the largest de-documentation effort in history, hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers, students, and other valued community members will be robbed of their TPS status and their ability to live and work legally in the United States,” Aguirre said. “While the Supreme Court failed to uphold the separation of powers at the center of our Constitution, it is not too late for Congress to act. If it doesn’t, everyone will suffer the consequences.”

Though the high court’s majority found the decision was totally unreviewable, federal code for the TPS statute says the Department of Homeland Security can end protections for a country, but only after consultation with various government agencies.

By deciding there is no review by the courts, Kagan dissented Thursday, “is of course to insulate critical matters from judicial scrutiny.”

“Suppose the Secretary determines that a country no longer qualifies for a TPS designation even though the record shows the opposite — that country conditions are as dire as ever. Under the statute, no court may second-guess that determination. But still, the review bar has limits. It does nothing to stop courts from reviewing things other than the Secretary’s “determination[s]” concerning TPS designations. And those other things include the procedural steps the Secretary must undertake prior to making any determination about country condition,” Kagan wrote.

Alito called Kagan’s hypothetical “far-fetched.”

The decision Thursday marks a devastating blow to Haitian and Syrians living in the U.S.

In May, HuffPost interviewed Dahlia Doe, the lead plaintiff challenging the Trump administration’s push to strip her of her status. The premise of being forced to go to Syria and leave the only life she has ever known in the U.S. terrified her.

“To even consider the option of going to a country that I don’t know, to a country where I have nobody and to a country that, frankly, is not in a position to support me as a newcomer because they are rebuilding … I can’t even imagine being forced to go there,” she said.

Doe is the primary caregiver for her elderly father, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease.

When TPS status is removed, typically that triggers a 60-day countdown from TPS holders to leave the United States. According to the International Refugee Assistance Project, the decision is scheduled to take effect in 32 days barring any further district court orders.

When losing TPS status, a person can appeal their removal or attempt to get a green card, but once removal proceedings are officially started, there is no green card option.

After the ruling was issued, Ohio Immigrant Alliance Executive Director Lynn Tramonte called out Republican state officials, including Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, and U.S. Sens. Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted.

According to the Ohio Capital Journal, at least 30,000 Haitians with temporary protected status live in Ohio.

“The only thing to do right now is figure out Plan B,” Tramonte said in a statement. “You cannot let Haitian-Ohioans be deported to a country where they will be killed. They are our family members, co-workers, friends, and neighbors. They are our people now. You cannot sit back and let this happen. You have power. Use it to be leaders now.”

Though the U.S. government defended removing Haiti from its list of protected countries because conditions have improved, notably, the State Department still lists Haiti as a “Level 4: Do Not Travel” zone for Americans “due to kidnapping, crime terrorist activity, civil unrest and limited health care.” Syria has a similar advisory.

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