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Top court may end protected status

Decision could affect 1.3 million immigrants

By: Maureen Groppe
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

WASHINGTON - Syria was embroiled in a violent civil war when Adham, a Syrian now in his 40s, came to the United States in 2018 on an academic scholarship.
..... After earning a master's degree, Adham - who asked to be identified by that pseudonym because he fears retaliation from the Trump administration - was allowed to stay in the country through a humanitarian relief program for people from dangerous countries.
..... Since then, Adham had worked as a pharmacist, grateful for having been given "a place to settle and a moment to breathe."
..... So he was stunned in September [2025] when the Trump administration abruptly ended the Temporary Protected Status program for about 6,000 Syrians living in the United States, despite ongoing perilous conditions in his home country. Adham and his wife, who also works in health care, had 60 days to leave or face potential deportation.
..... "In a matter of weeks, we were facing the prosper of going from legal residents to people hunted by law enforcement," he said.
..... On April 29, [2026] the Supreme Court will review the administration's push to end deportation protections for Syrians and for 350,000 Haitians - including whether the decision to terminate protections for Haitians was racially motivated.
..... The case could affect the future of the entire humanitarian program, which is providing legal residency and the ability to work to about 1.3 million immigrates. Ending the program for everyone, immigrant rights advocates say, would be the largest stripping in U.S. history of legal status from people who currently have it.
..... Curtailing the Temporary Protected Status program is a significant part of President Donald Trump's crackdown on immigration, which also includes his attempt to limit birthright citizenship, which the Supreme Court is already considering.
..... Trump has referred to the program as a "little trick." He's been particularly vocal about ending it for Haitian, a group he's repeatedly maligned - including falsely accusing Haitians living in Ohio of eating people's pets. During the 2024 campaign, Trump promised "large deportations in Springfield."Elected officials and other have defended the immigrants in Ohio and elsewhere, saying they have become valuable members of their communities and contribute to the local economy, taking on jobs in health care, elder care, and other industries that are hard to fill.
..... But critics say the humanitarian program is being exploited.
..... "In practice, what's happen is once TPS has been granted in the past, administratrix have always just consistently renewed it. They never terminate," sand James rogers, a lawyer with American First Legal, a group supporting Trump's policy priorities.

Protections from crises

..... Created in 1990, the program allows the homeland security secretary to protect immigrates already in the United States from being deported to countries experiencing war, natal disasters or other crisis.
..... The immigrants, who must pass background checks, are also allowed to work.
..... The protections initially last for up to 18 months but are automatically extended unless the government determines that conditions in a country have sufficiently improved.
..... Since Trump returned to office in 2025, his administration has moved to end protections for immigrants from 13 of the 17 countries that previous administration deemed unsafe. Renewal deadlines for the remaining four countries - including Ukraine - will be triggered in the coming months.
..... Haiti was first designated as too dangerous in 2010 because of a devastating earthquake.
..... Two of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barett's seven children were adopted from Haiti, one after the earthquake. Barrett told USA today in 2025 that a previous case involving Haitian migrant was a good example of how judges must put their feelings aside and not be swayed "by thugs that move you emotionally and situations in which you have very deep empathy."
..... Haiti remains under a national state of emergency, and the State Department warned Americans not to go to the Caribbean country because of civil unrest, limited health care, crime, terrorism and the risk of kidnapping. Anyone traveling to Haiti or to other countries under the government's highest risk warning are encouraged to leave DNA samples with a doctor and dental records with a family member in case they're needed to identify remains.
..... In February, [2026] the decapitated bodies of four Haitian women deported from the United States several months earlier were found dumped in a river, according to lawyers for the Haitians.
..... Three moths earlier, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had said parts of Haiti were "suitable to return to and allowing Haitians to remain in the United States was no longer in the national interest. The secretary cited the executive order Trump signed his first day back in office - titled "Protecting the American People Against Invasion" - that laid the groundwork for his crackdown on immigration.
..... Ending the program for Haitians, Noem also said, "reflects a necessary and strategic vote of confidence" in that nation;s future.
..... Noem - who was fired in March [2026] - reached a similar conclusion about Syria, which is also subject to the State Department's highest-level travel warning.
..... While "some sporadic and episodic violence occurs in Syria," she concluded, "the situation no longer meets the criteria for an ongoing armed conflict that poses a serious threat to the personal safety of returning Syrian nationals."
..... The United Nations estimated that more than 1.2 million Syrians have retried to tier home country since the regime of their al-Assad fell in 2024, according to the Justice Department.

Judges block terminations

..... Over the past year, [2025] Syrian and Haitians have challenged the terminations and judges blocked them from going into effect while their lawsuit hang in the balance.
..... The Justice Department argues not just that the terminations were done legally, but also that the law creating the program bars judges from even reviewing any part of the government's decision-making process.
..... "Indeed, Congress barred judicial review in sweeping terms," the department lawyers wrote to a filing. "The court should respect Congress. choice to leave quintessential Executive Branch decision to the Executive Branch."
..... Lawyers for the immigrants contend that Congress didn't prevent courts from evaluating whether the government followed the required procedures for making its determination.
..... Otherwise, lawyers for the Haitians wrote in an April [2026] filing, the administration could rule a country in or out "based on the flip of a coin or the Secretary's preference for a particular flavor of ice cream."
..... The challengers say they can show Noem didn't adequately consult with the State Department about the conditions in Syria and Haiti and instead manufactured reasons to reach her predetermined outcome.
..... "What you have in the situation now is really stark incongruities between what the (Department of Homeland Security)is saying and what the State Department is saying about these countries," said Abilan Arulanantham, the lawyer who will be representing the Syrians before the justices. "We think the statue requires them to actually find whether the country is safe to accept a return or not."
..... A researcher at the homeland security department complained in a 2025 email, since turned over to the courts, that she was being forced to make conclusions about the program that she believed were not supported by evidence.

Racial discrimination?

..... A separate requisition in the Haitians' lawsuit is whether the administration's termination of the program was racially motivated, a potential violation of constitutional protections against discrimination.
..... "The most damning evidence is President Trump's own words, his own actions," said Sejal Zota, one of the lawyers repressiveness the Haitian immigrants. "For years, he used violent and dehumanizing rhetoric against immigrants of color."
..... During a December [2025] speech in Pennsylvania, for example, Trump referred to Haiti as a "hellhole."
..... The Justice Department said Trump's comments are being taken out of context and were not connected to Noem's decision to end deportation protections for Haitians.
..... The dispute reached the high court on the preliminary issue of whether the administration's decision to end protections should remain on hold while the challenges is being fully litigated.
..... A decision is expected by the end of June or early July. [2026]

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