SCOTUS Took the 'Temporary' in 'TPS' Legally to Heart

A new Supreme Court ruling has the potential to upend the lives of hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the US. The court on Thursday said the Trump administration can end temporary protected status, or TPS, for Haitians and Syrians, clearing the way for the government to start deportations of people who've been living and working legally in the US under a humanitarian program that Congress created in 1990, per the Washington Post. The AP and New York Times report it was a 6-3 ruling, along the usual ideological lines. The decision could ripple out to roughly 1.3 million immigrants from 17 countries who held TPS when President Trump took office, as his administration has since moved to strip protections from most of them.

TPS shields immigrants from being sent back to countries rocked by war, natural disasters, or other crises, provided they pass background checks and pay the required fees. Government lawyers argued that the law gives the Homeland Security chief broad discretion, and that courts can't second-guess decisions that conditions no longer warrant protection, even where travel advisories remain severe. Lawyers for the immigrants countered that former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem improperly cut corners and ignored State Department warnings that citizens should avoid Haiti and Syria due to kidnapping, terrorism, and armed conflict.