SCOTUS: Trump’s Revocation of TPS for Haitians, Syrians Can Stand.

The U.S. Supreme Court handed a major victory not only to the Trump administration but also the American people today by overturning lower court decisions to block the administration’s revocation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians and Syrians.

Far-left federal judges, including an immigrant, have repeatedly blocked the administration’s attempts to remove the migrants brought here in the past.

The essence of the ruling: Decisions by the Secretary of Homeland Security on TPS are not subject to judicial review.

As well, the court’s majority rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that statements about Haiti and Haitians from President Trump and then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem were “racist,” and therefore the revocation of TPS violated their equal protection rights.

Revoking TPS

Noem ended TPS — an imprudent law that permits “migrants” to invade the United States if their countries are unsafe and stay here until those conditions improve — for a bazillion Venezuelans in February 2025, a finding that a leftist federal judge called Edward Chen, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, blocked the following April.

Chen ruled that Noem’s decision trespassed the Administrative Procedure Act.

Noem ended TPS for the duck- and goose-eating Haitian invaders in June last year. But thanks to the usual leftist lawfare, their eagerly awaited deportation was also delayed.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, an Uruguayan immigrant lesbian, blocked the order on the day it was to take effect, February 2.

As for her motive, Reyes let the gato out of the bag today in reaffirming her ruling, as Fox News reported. “I am an immigrant,” she said. “I did not hide that from the president of the United States … or from the U.S. Senate.” And, she said, some wonder “how someone like me, an immigrant and a lesbian, could get this job.” 

In September last year, Noem ended TPS for the Syrians, but once again, a far-left federal judge blocked that decision. That “temporary” protected status began in 2012, 14 years ago.

In January, Noem ended TPS for the Somalis. Their “temporary” protected status had been in place for 34 years.

Another far-left federal judge blocked that order.

In each case, Noem determined that conditions in the TPS holders’ home countries had changed and they could safely return.

Bottom line, despite black-letter federal law, leftist judges believe they, not the president, control U.S. immigration policy.

SCOTUS Ruling

The six-justice conservative majority on the court didn’t see it that way. Associate Justice Samuel Alito wrote the 49-page opinion.

Alito shot down the plaintiffs’ claim that, contrary to federal law, a judge can overturn Noem’s determinations. Even SCOTUS can’t review them.

We first consider respondents’ non-constitutional claims and conclude that we are barred from reviewing them. A provision of the TPS statute, 8 U.S.C. §1254a(b)(5)(A), provides: “There is no judicial review of any determination of the [Secretary of Homeland Security] with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation, of a foreign state under this subsection.” This text is clear, and its plain meaning is very broad.

Also rejected were risible claims that Trump and Noem are hood-wearing racists who simply don’t the Third World migrants who now claim squatter’s rights in the United States. Thus, Noem’s order supposedly trespassed the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause because it was discriminatory.

Alito wrote that Trump and Noem’s statement fall into four categories:

First, many express strong objections to the immigration that this country has experienced in recent decades and to many of the immigrants who have come here, particularly those who have come to or stayed in the United States illegally. These statements associate these immigrants with crime and other social ills. Second, some statements express great displeasure with TPS. They note, among other things, that TPS designations have often been far from temporary and that aliens who are allowed to stay in the United States under the program are not vetted like other aliens who seek admission. Third, some statements broadly denigrate the countries for which TPS designations have been granted — including Haiti — portraying them as hellish places in which to live. And fourth, some statements malign Haitians who have come to the United States.

… respondents also cite statements by former Secretary Noem that fall into three categories. Some expressed antipathy toward travelers from countries covered by a renewed travel ban.… Others were derogatory comments about immigration and its effects. And still some others promised changes and criticized past implementation of TPS.

But, Alito continued, those statements were not “overtly racial,” and simply “expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications.” One might oppose TPS for myriad reasons, the ruling continued, unrelated to race. As well, “a person without racial bias can provide a harshly unfavorable description of living conditions in some of the countries with TPS designations,” Alito wrote.

Thus, Alito concluded, with the claim that Haiti’s TPS termination was racially motivated, the plaintiffs sought to “capitalize on the statements’ heated language.… But whatever one may think of the cited statements, they are insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people.”

Upshot: The Haitians and Syrians, and likely anyone else for whom TPS has ended, can pack their bags. And across the fruited plain, from Portland East to Portland West, the ducks and geese that narrowly escaped the hungry Haitians’ cook pots are quacking and honking a happy tune today.