On April 29th, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Mullin et al v. Dahlia Doe et al. The case is focused on whether Haitians and Syrians now in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) can be forced to return to their home countries.
The stakes could not be higher, for Haitians and Syrians, for the more than 1.3 million TPS holders now in the US hailing from more than a dozen countries, and for democracy itself.
There are two fundamental and pressing issues at stake:
- Can the federal government always be trusted to faithfully and reliably implement Congressional legislation? And if not, can it be held accountable?
- To what extent can the U.S. legal system transcend internal debates over interpretation of the Constitution and federal law to assure reasonable efforts to confront real-world problems?
Enacted by Congress in 1990 (in a bipartisan vote of 264-118), TPS is provided to immigrants from countries designated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to be too dangerous to return to, whether because of armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other extraordinary conditions. Holders are granted temporary protection from deportation as well as work authorization.
There are currently some 330,000 Haitians with TPS in the United States, most of them concentrated in Florida and New York. The number of Syrian TPS holders is approximately 6,100 as of early 2026.
Legal observers and immigrant rights advocates are concerned, given the Court’s deference to the Executive Branch in recent rulings — including its cancellation of TPS for Venezuelans in October of last year — about a potential SCOTUS decision against the plaintiffs, seven Syrian nationals and five Haitians.
However, there are some rays of hope.
Writing for the New York Times, legal analyst Linda Greenhouse noted recently that in this case, the justices could be forced to rein in the Trump administration, which canceled protections for both Haitians and Syrians last year. That decision was halted by a lower court after the plaintiffs filed separate suits. Their cases have since been consolidated.
According to Greenhouse, the fact that the Court refused the administration’s request to pause the lower court order suggests where the justices may be leaning. There is also compelling evidence that the administration’s actions in terminating protections for Haitians and Syrians were arbitrary, capricious, and driven primarily by malice in violation of the 1990 law.
“The records in both the Haitian and Syrian cases reveal a brazen violation of procedural requirements” by then-DHS head Kristi Noem, writes Greenhouse. Under the 1990 Immigration Act, DHS is required to consult with “appropriate agencies” as to the relative safety of a given country prior to revoking TPS. That never happened, according to the lower court ruling.
Haiti remains mired in conflict with armed gangs now running large swathes of the country. Two weeks before the DHS termination notice, Hurricane Melissa, the most serious Caribbean storm in years, hit the country hard. Earlier in the month, UNICEF reported that Haiti was at a “breaking point” and in December, Relief Web estimated there were 1.4 million displaced people and that there would be 3-3.5 million people needing food assistance by May, 2026.
The situation in Syria is hardly better following the fall of former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, with inter-ethnic conflict threatening to upend a fragile transition.
Despite realities on the ground, the Trump administration’s argument — the same it has used in past litigation on issues of major concern — is essentially that it can do whatever it wants because Congress delegates the task of implementing laws to federal agencies such as U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS).
It furthermore contends that the law as written limits judicial review of DHS decisions regarding TPS, an argument contradicted by numerous court rulings that say while DHS decisions are shielded, procedures used to make those decisions are subject to review.
Ironically, one criterion in the law for terminating TPS for immigrants of a particular nationality is that their continued residence in the US is deemed to not be “in the national interest.”
Haitian TPS workers are an increasingly key resource for staffing hospitals, hotels, and nursing homes. They are the caretakers that aging Americans and their families rely on every day. Numerous studies, moreover, suggest TPS holders more broadly contribute upwards of $36 billion in annual GDP growth.
In a reassuring sign, the House of Representatives in a bipartisan vote on April 16 passed a measure extending by 3 years TPS protections for Haitians. That bill now heads to the Senate.
A ruling against the administration in the SCOTUS case, now two weeks out, would signal that decisions affecting the lives of millions must be reasonable and, among other things, consider real-world impacts instead of partisan talking points.
It would also go some way in holding the administration accountable for faithfully implementing laws that Congress has enacted.
A ruling in the other direction would spell chaos, turning hundreds of thousands of immigrants now legally in the country into unauthorized migrants subject to deportation, all at the stroke of a pen.
