The Supreme Court lets the Trump administration end legal protections
for Haitians and Syrians
[June 26, 2026]
By LINDSAY WHITEHURST
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump
administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence
and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands
more people to potential deportation.
The 6-3 decision overturns lower court orders and allows the Department
of Homeland Security to swiftly end temporary protected status, a
program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries.
It marked another victory at the high court for Republican President
Donald Trump's sweeping crackdown on immigration. Though the
conservative-dominated court has put the brakes on some of Trump’s
immigration policies, it handed him a second win Thursday in a decision
clearing the way for the revival of a policy restricting immigrants
seeking asylum.
The court’s conservative majority found that the law doesn’t allow
courts to question the process that immigration authorities use to
revoke the protections.
The opinion from Justice Samuel Alito also brushed aside arguments that
Trump's derogatory comments about Haitians showed the decision was
unlawfully tinged by prejudice. He called the statements “insufficient
to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the
race of the Haitian people.”
Justice Elena Kagan forcefully disagreed, calling Trump's comments “so
repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them
in print.” Her dissent pointed out that Trump had said Haitians in the
U.S. “probably have AIDS,” and he also amplified false rumors during the
2024 campaign that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were abducting and eating
dogs and cats.
Federal authorities deny that prejudice played a role, and argued that
TPS was supposed to be temporary but has lasted over a decade in some
cases.
James Percival, DHS general counsel, applauded Thursday’s ruling. He
said the program had become “de facto amnesty. This is a win for the
rule of law and common sense.”
In a Fox News interview Thursday, Deputy White House Chief of Staff
Stephen Miller called it “a victory 10 years in the making," saying it
allows Haitian migrants to “finally” be removed.
Lawyers said Haitian immigrants would be in danger if they are sent
back. “Simply put, the Supreme Court’s ruling will directly result in
thousands of innocent people dying violent, needless deaths,” Geoff
Pipoly and Andy Tauber said.
They urged the Senate to approve an extension of deportation protections
for Haitians that passed the House on a rare bipartisan vote in April.
“Families are here, kids are going to school, parents are going into
work, folks are trying to commute, and it’s like the Supreme Court just
put all those activities on stop and put folks in limbo,” said Viles
Dorsainvil, who runs a support center for Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.
People with TPS are also a key part of the workforce in long-term care
facilities, an industry group said. “This would be a dreadful loss for
all seniors in our community,” said Rita Siebenaler, a resident at
Goodwin Living, a senior living community in Virginia.
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Linda Joseph holds a candle during a vigil at the Little Haiti
Cultural Complex after a federal judge blocked the Trump
administration from ending temporary immigration status, or TPS, for
Haitians, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, in North Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne
Sladky, File)
The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court after judges
postponed the end of the program for about 350,000 Haitians and
6,000 Syrians. The high court sided with the administration before
and allowed the end of the program for people from Venezuela.
Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, Homeland
Security has moved to end the protections, including some that had
been in place for more than a decade, for people from 13 countries.
Immigration lawyers said the terminations were made through an
improperly fast process, even though countries such as Haiti and
Syria remain dangerous. Four Haitian women who were deported from
the United States in February were later found beheaded and dumped
in a river several months later, lawyers said in court documents.
Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, called the ruling
“a devastating betrayal of Haitian families who have lived, worked,
and contributed to this country for years — only to be cast out
based on anti-Black immigration sentiment.”
The United States first granted protections to Haitians in 2010
after a catastrophic earthquake and extended them multiple times
amid ongoing gang violence that has displaced more than a million
people, according to court documents.
Syrians were first granted protected status in 2012, during a civil
war that lasted for more than a decade before the fall of President
Bashar Assad’s government in late 2024.
“Today, many of our community members, they feel lost,” Farrah
AlKhorfan of Immigrants Act Now said about Syrian immigrants losing
TPS protections. “They are trying to understand … what this decision
means for them and how it will be implemented and how much time they
will have to prepare for what comes next.”
The program was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations
to countries suffering from natural disasters, civil strife and
other instability. It allows people already in the country to stay
with work permits in increments of up to 18 months, but it does not
provide a path to citizenship.
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Associated Press writer Tim Sullivan in Minneapolis and Collin
Binkley in Washington contributed to this report
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