For the time being, the justices upheld two lower court orders that prevent the Trump administration from immediately ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Syrian and Haitian migrants. However, the Supreme Court has agreed to review the consolidated cases on an expedited basis and announced that it will hear oral arguments in both cases next month, Fox News reported.
The outlet added that a final ruling is expected sometime in June.
The news comes as the Trump administration has taken steps to end the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for migrants from about six countries. This includes approximately 6,000 Syrians and 350,000 Haitians currently residing in the United States under the program.
The TPS program allows individuals from certain countries to live and work legally in the U.S. if they are unable to return safely to their home country due to a disaster, armed conflict, or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”
Last week, Solicitor General D. John Sauer requested that the Supreme Court intervene and stay a lower court order issued by U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes. Her order blocked the administration’s attempt to immediately revoke the TPS designations for Haitian migrants, Fox noted.
Sauer urged the Supreme Court to consider the larger question of whether the Trump administration has the authority to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for other migrants living in the U.S. He pointed to the Justice Department’s appeal of a similar case concerning TPS protections for Syrian migrants, which was brought before the Supreme Court earlier this year.
“Unless the court resolves the merits of these challenges — issues that have now been ventilated in courts nationwide — this unsustainable cycle will repeat again and again, spawning more competing rulings and competing views of what to make of this court’s interim orders,” Sauer said last week. “This court should break that cycle.”
Haitians were first granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in 2010 following a devastating earthquake that resulted in the deaths of more than 200,000 people and left approximately 1.5 million homeless in the country. The protections have been extended multiple times, including under the Biden administration in 2021, after the assassination of Jovenel Moïse, Haiti’s last democratically elected president, in July of that year.
The administration’s SCOTUS appeal arises from its effort to end most TPS designations, arguing that these programs have been prolonged for too long under Democratic presidents, Fox added.
“Trump officials have also taken aim at lower courts that have sought to block or pause their efforts to wind down TPS protections, accusing the lower court judges of exceeding their authority and unlawfully intruding on the executive branch’s authority on immigration policy,” Fox reported.
A federal judge in Los Angeles, meanwhile, granted the Trump administration a legal victory on Monday by issuing a preliminary injunction against California’s “No Secret Police Act,” a state law that prohibits ICE agents from wearing masks during enforcement operations.
U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder, whom President Bill Clinton appointed, ruled that the law unlawfully discriminates against federal officers by targeting them specifically while exempting state and local law enforcement.
The court struck down the law on constitutional grounds, not based on policy considerations.
“The Court finds that federal officers can perform their federal functions without wearing masks. However, because the No Secret Police Act, as presently enacted, does not apply equally to all law enforcement officers in the state, it unlawfully discriminates against federal officers,” Snyder wrote.
