In Supreme Court fight against deportation shield, Trump says judges have no role
By Andrew Chung
April 25 (Reuters) – Among President Donald Trump’s main arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court defending his move to strike down humanitarian protections protecting hundreds of thousands of immigrants from deportation, one stands out: Courts cannot review the Trump administration’s decisions in this area.
Federal judges in New York and Washington, D.C., barred the Trump administration from stripping more than 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians of legal status granted by the U.S. government that protects them from deportation. Citing widespread violence, crime, terrorism and kidnappings, the administration currently warns against travel to any of these countries for any reason.
The justices will hear arguments Wednesday in the administration’s appeal of former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s actions to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for people from Haiti and Syria.
The rescinding of TPS and other humanitarian protections is part of Trump’s broader crackdown on legal and illegal immigration since returning to office in January 2025.
When it took up the matter, the Supreme Court did not grant the administration’s request to immediately end TPS protections for Haitians and Syrians while the case was pending. Last year, the court allowed the administration to end TPS for Venezuelans under similar circumstances.
WARS AND DISASTERS
Under US law called the Immigration Act of 1990, TPS is a designation that allows immigrants from countries affected by war, natural disasters or other disasters to live and work in the US unless it is unsafe to return to their home countries.
The legal dispute could have broad ramifications, affecting 1.3 million immigrants from all 17 countries identified by the TPS, according to the plaintiffs. The Trump administration has so far sought to rescind protections for 13 of these countries.
Lower courts ruled against the administration’s TPS termination, finding that officials had failed to follow protocols required under the Immigration Act to assess conditions in a country before canceling an appointment.
Trump’s Justice Department counters these points and offers a broader argument that could end future challenges, arguing that courts cannot second-guess TPS decisions in the first place.
“The TPS statute expressly prohibits judicial review of allegations attacking the secretary’s TPS determinations, including the procedures and analyzes underlying those determinations,” the department said in a filing to the Supreme Court. he said.
On these and other issues, Trump has taken a broad view of presidential powers but a limited view of judicial power.
Ahilan Arulanantham, an attorney for Syrian TPS recipients who are challenging the administration’s actions, said “a huge sum is at stake” in the legal battle. “If the government is right, then they can end TPS without any country conditions review – they can do this for completely arbitrary reasons,” Arulanantham said.
Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law, told reporters during a conference call that the administration’s actions generally do not reflect the rational decision-making of a federal agency, but rather a concerted effort to end TPS altogether.
“This is actually about a war against the congressional charter,” Arulanantham added.
While the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has accepted the Republican president’s demands for immediate implementation of various strict immigration policies, legal challenges continue to arise in the courts. For example, it allowed Trump to deport immigrants to countries with which they have no ties and allowed federal agents to target people for deportation based in part on their race or language.
FALSE CLAIMS
Trump, who tried but failed to rescind TPS protections during his first term as president, has made clear he will try again as he runs for re-election. For example, Trump vowed to repeal TPS after making false and derogatory claims that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Ohio.
Noem, a Trump appointee, moved quickly on TPS designations for countries up to and including Feb. 1, 2025, to end protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.
TPS recipients, some of whom have been in the United States for years and may face separation from their jobs and families, said it was cruel to consider sending them back to countries where they would face danger or even risk of death.
“Temporary Protected Status is, by definition, temporary. It was never intended as a path to permanent status or legal residence, no matter how badly left-wing organizations want it,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Reuters. he said.
During Democrat Barack Obama’s presidency, Haitians were first granted TPS following the devastating earthquake in 2010, and Syrians were granted TPS in 2012 after the country descended into civil war. The US government has repeatedly extended the status due to ongoing crises in these countries.
Noem moved to rescind TPS for Syria last September and for Haiti last November, stating that those designations were contrary to U.S. national interests, in part because of difficulties in screening and vetting immigrants from those countries. Noem’s TPS decisions were not an issue when Trump fired her in March.
Syrian and Haitian TPS holder groups filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that the termination notices were merely a pretext for the administration’s plan to terminate existing appointments. The lawsuit said Noem failed to comply with the TPS law’s procedural instruction to consult with other federal agencies about conditions in a country before revoking its protective status.
The plaintiffs said the consultation consisted of a State Department official responding to a Department of Homeland Security official’s email saying there were “no foreign policy concerns” about ending the appointments.
JUDICIAL REVIEW
The Trump Justice Department said the rulings supporting plaintiffs in the cases were “an invitation for courts to arbitrate interagency debates, request agency details, and gauge how much consultation is enough.”
But that defense would be unnecessary if the court were to accept the Justice Department’s bolder claim that the administration’s actions were shielded from scrutiny anyway.
Relying on a section of the 1990 law that states there is no judicial review of “any decision” regarding the granting, extension or termination of TPS, he said this includes not only the final results but also the decisions behind them. In a written submission, it warned against “the appointment of regional courts as final foreign policy controllers with interim status.”
The claim that courts have no role in reviewing the legality of certain presidential administration actions is a familiar argument for Trump. His administration has issued numerous challenges to his policies as part of a broader crackdown on judges’ authority, according to a Reuters analysis.
The plaintiffs said the administration’s stance would isolate even illegal acts. They argue that the law allows courts to review federal officials’ compliance with due process requirements.
They also cite the 2019 Supreme Court decision that blocked Trump from adding a citizenship question to the national census; It’s a move that opponents characterize as an effort by Republicans to deter immigrants from participating in the decennial census. The court decided that the reasons given by the administration officials for adding the question were excuses and fabrications.
‘HOSTILITY TO NON-WHITE’
In the Haiti case, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes ruled that the administration’s action was likely motivated in part by “racial animus” and violated the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment promise of equal protection under the law.
Reyes referenced statements from Trump and Noem, including the former homeland security secretary’s social media post labeling immigrants as murderers and leeches.
“Plaintiffs allege that Secretary Noem predetermined the termination and did so out of hostility toward immigrants of color. This seems highly likely,” Reyes wrote.
The Justice Department opposes any racial discrimination, saying race was not mentioned in any of Trump’s or Noem’s statements. He said the Supreme Court should apply its jurisprudence that respects the administration on immigration, foreign policy and national security issues.
The Supreme Court is expected to make a decision towards the end of June.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
