Supreme Court Ruling on TPS: Mullin v. Doe

The consolidated cases, Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot, were brought by Haitian and Syrian TPS holders challenging the termination of their protections. In a 6 to 3 decision, the Court sided with the administration on two questions: that judges cannot review how the government decided to end these designations, and that while families can still argue the decision was driven by race, that claim is unlikely to win.

First, it held that the TPS statute bars federal courts from reviewing nearly any challenge to how the government ends a TPS designation. That swept away most arguments communities had used to pause these terminations in court: that the government broke the law, acted without sound reasoning, or, as in these cases, failed to follow legal procedures and consult other agencies about whether Syria and Haiti were truly safe before ending people’s protections.

Second, it ruled that the Haitian plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed in their constitutional equal protection claim that the termination of TPS for Haitians was racially motivated. Importantly, the Court did not eliminate the right to bring such constitutional claims. But it decided for itself that statements by President Trump and former Secretary Noem were probably not enough to show race played a part in the decision, brushing aside a lower court that had reviewed the full record and concluded the opposite. The Court reached only the Haitian plaintiffs’ race claim, since that was the only equal protection finding a lower court had upheld. The Syrians’ identical claim on equal protection was left undecided and could ultimately be decided by a lower court, even as the termination is allowed to proceed.

What This Means for Haitian and Syrian TPS Holders

Nothing changes overnight. But the Court’s decision clears the way for the government to move forward with ending these protections. Roughly 330,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians who have lived, worked, and raised families here legally for more than a decade could lose their work permits and their protection from removal. Many would then face an impossible choice: leave the country, often separating from family, or stay and risk detention and deportation to nations the State Department itself still warns are too dangerous for travel.

What This Means for the Nearly 1.3 Million People with TPS

This decision reaches far beyond two countries. The current administration has attempted to terminate nearly every TPS designation that has come up for review, thirteen in all, spanning Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. With judicial review now foreclosed for most challenges, about 1.3 million people who hold TPS have lost a critical safeguard. As the dissent warned, a future Secretary could end a designation without genuinely reviewing conditions on the ground, and the courts would be “powerless to intervene.”

What This Means for the Country

When the Executive can undo the legal status of entire communities without meaningful review by courts, the protection is not only lost for immigrants. It is weakened for everyone. The dissent warned that the majority’s reading makes the statute’s safeguards “precatory,” reducing Congress’s commands to suggestions the administration is free to ignore. Justice Kagan refused to look away from what the majority would not name: that the President’s statements about Haitians “fairly shout, in their racial undertones and overtones alike, that race entered into” the decision to remove them.

This is why Congress must step up. TPS was always temporary, but the people it protected built lasting lives here. They deserve more than a status that can vanish overnight. We call on Congress to pass legislation that creates a permanent pathway to citizenship for TPS holders and the communities who stand with them.