The Supreme Court announced Monday it will hear the Trump administration’s appeal to end Temporary Protected Status for certain immigrants, including those from Syria and Haiti.
Immigration groups have argued that people can’t return to the two countries due to unsafe conditions.
However, the Trump Justice Department has argued that the Department of Homeland Security has sole power to end the protections that were originally designed to be temporary.
Under President Donald Trump, the agency has moved to end TPS designations for about a dozen countries. The protections are available to people whose home country has experienced a natural disaster, armed conflict, or other extraordinary events.
The Trump administration had appealed lower court rulings that stopped the immediate end of protected status for about 350,000 Haitians and about 6,000 Syrians inside the United States. If the administration wins, it would allow for the immigrants to be deported.
The administration had asked the justices to let the terminations for Haiti and Syria take effect while the cases proceed. However, the justices for now kept in place two judicial orders that temporarily halted the terminations.
Justices will hear arguments in the case in April, according to SCOTUSblog.
The high court has previously sided with the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for about 600,000 Venezuelans.
Kristi Noem, a Trump appointee then serving as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, determined last November that there were “no extraordinary and temporary conditions” in Haiti that would prevent Haitian migrants from returning to the Caribbean country.
The State Department currently warns against travel to Haiti “due to kidnapping, crime, terrorist activity, civil unrest and limited healthcare.”
Haitians were first given TPS in 2010 under Democrat former President Barack Obama, after a devastating earthquake struck their country.
TPS was first extended to Syrians in 2012 during Obama’s administration after Syria plunged into a civil war that culminated with the toppling of President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
Reuters contributed to this report.
