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More than a million people could soon be eligible for deportation after the Supreme Court permitted the Trump administration to strip humanitarian protections from certain nationalities.
The high court’s ruling Thursday morning specifically concerns the inclusion of Haiti and Syria in the temporary protected status (TPS) program, which protects citizens from select countries from deportation and provides them a pathway to work authorization.
The Homeland Security secretary is responsible for determining which countries can receive a TPS designation. Reasons for the protection include ongoing armed conflict, an environmental disaster, an epidemic or “other extraordinary circumstances,” according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
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The Trump administration has threatened to end TPS protection for 13 out of 17 countries, but Thursday’s ruling specifically pertains to Syrians and Haitians covered under the program.
As of March 2025, the U.S. provided TPS protections to 330,735 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians, according to the CRS.
The ruling is expected to have implications for people from a number of other countries that the Trump administration has attempted to take off the TPS list, as legal challenges to further removal efforts will likely be dismissed under this new precedent.
The administration has attempted to terminate TPS protections for people from Venezuela, Honduras, Afghanistan, Nepal, Cameroon, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen and Nicaragua. These countries accounted for nearly an additional 700,000 people protected under TPS in March 2025, according to the CRS.
Four Democratic senators on the Congressional Hispanic Caucus decried the decision as a “betrayal of American families” in a joint statement released Thursday afternoon.
“TPS is a legal immigration status and a lifeline for those fleeing violence and disaster,” the senators wrote. “Here legally for decades, TPS recipients have become important members of our communities.”
The lawmakers were Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.).
“For the Supreme Court to rubberstamp Trump’s mass deportation scheme is cruel and frankly un-American – the impacts will ripple across all immigrant communities and put every TPS holder at risk,” they continued. “Let us be clear: we will not stop fighting for a pathway to citizenship for families across America.”
The White House celebrated the ruling, calling it a “tremendous win for the Trump administration” in a statement to The Hill.
“Today, the Supreme Court affirmed what President Trump has always maintained: temporary protected status is, by definition, temporary,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said.
“It was never intended to be a pathway to permanent status or legal residency and it is committed to the discretion of the Secretary of Homeland Security,” she continued. “The Trump Administration continues to lawfully end the egregious abuses to our immigration system that have hurt Americans for years.”
Add as preferred source on Google Tags Alex Padilla Ben Ray Lujan Catherine Cortez Masto Haitian nationals Homeland Security Ruben Gallego Supreme Court Syrian Nationals Trump administrationCopyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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