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April 29, 2026, 9:12 a.m. ET
Live Updates: Supreme Court Will Consider Trump’s Bid to End Deportation Protections
The justices will hear two cases covering hundreds of thousands of people from Haiti and Syria with Temporary Protected Status who could be forced out of the country.
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The Supreme Court fast-tracked two cases, involving more than 350,000 Haitians and about 6,000 Syrians the Trump administration has sought to expel.
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Eric Lee for The New York Times
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April 29, 2026, 9:10 a.m. ET
Ann E. Marimow
Here’s the latest.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in the Trump administration’s bid to immediately end humanitarian protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians, potentially forcing them to return to dangerous conditions in their home countries.
President Trump’s attempt to terminate the program known as Temporary Protected Status is a pillar of his aggressive anti-immigration agenda, and the court’s ruling will most likely have implications for migrants from more than a dozen troubled nations who have been allowed to live and work legally in the United States.
The justices fast-tracked two cases, one involving more than
350,000 Haitians and another covering about 6,000 Syrians
. The administration argues that it has followed proper procedures for the review and termination of protections for the two nations, but lower courts have found that the decisions had been preordained and not based on meaningful analysis.
The class-action lawsuits were filed by T.P.S. holders, including engineers, students, doctors and caregivers, who want to continue to work and live in the United States because their lawyers say they could be killed if they are forced to return to Syria or Haiti.
Mr. Trump has taken
particular aim at Haitians
in his criticism of immigration policies, and his disparagement of them is likely to be highlighted during oral arguments. Lawyers in that matter have said the administration was motivated by prejudice, citing the president’s false accusations during the 2024 campaign about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, eating their neighbors’ pets.
Here’s what else we’re covering:
The legal dispute:
The government and lawyers for the T.P.S. holders agree that the law allows the administration to remove countries from the program. But immigrant rights advocates want the court to order the administration to restart its review process for these countries to make fact-based, good-faith assessments before ending protections.
The program:
The Temporary Protected Status program was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush as part of the Immigration Act of 1990. Haitians first received protections in 2010 after a devastating earthquake, and the program was extended several times, including after the assassination of the country’s last elected president in 2021. The first Trump administration extended protections for Syrians that were first enacted in 2012, citing “a brutal crackdown” by then-President Bashar al-Assad.
Venezuelan migrants:
The Supreme Court previously allowed the Trump administration to move forward with its plans to
lift protections for more than 300,000 Venezuelans
who had been living in the United States. But the emergency orders in that case that did not include the justices’ legal reasoning.
A packed term:
The cases are being heard on the final day of arguments in a court term that began in October and has already included challenges to other major parts of Mr. Trump’s agenda. In February, the court ruled against the legality of the president’s sweeping tariffs, and the justices will soon decide whether Mr. Trump can end the longstanding guarantee of birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born babies of illegal immigrants and certain foreign visitors.
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April 29, 2026, 9:12 a.m. ET
Mattathias Schwartz
Shortly before 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning, as the Supreme Court prepared to hear arguments over the Trump administration’s attempt to revoke deportation protections known as Temporary Protected Status, or T.P.S., from hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian migrants, a crowd had already gathered in front of the court’s plaza.
A band of day laborers from the Los Angeles area, Los Jornaleros Del Norte, were playing traditional Latin American music, part of a series of performances from artists representing the cultures of T.P.S. recipients that would continue throughout the day, said José Palma, coordinator of the National TPS Alliance.
“While the hearing is going on and the lawyers are making their arguments to the justices, we will be making our own argument out here to U.S. society,” he said, over the sound of guitar and accordion. “We’ll be showing the public who we are.”
April 29, 2026, 9:07 a.m. ET
Madeleine Ngo
What to know about T.P.S. for Haitians and Syrians.
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A vigil in Miami in February for Haitians living in the United States under Temporary Protected Status.
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Giorgio Viera/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Wednesday in cases that could have major consequences for the Trump administration’s aggressive push to end the Temporary Protected Status program.
At the heart of the cases are hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians who were first granted deportation protections through the program more than a decade ago. Since then, they have filled jobs across the country in critical industries like health care and agriculture.
Here’s what we know about the Haitians and Syrians with T.P.S.
T.P.S. for Haitians
The Obama administration first granted the status to Haitians in 2010 after
a powerful earthquake
devastated their country. About
350,000 Haitians
are authorized to live and work in the United States through the program.
The protections were repeatedly
extended
as Haiti struggled to fully recover. Other crises also struck the country, including a
cholera epidemic
that weakened the nation’s public health system.
In late 2017, the Trump administration said it
would end the program,
contending that Haiti had made enough progress in its recovery. But legal challenges blocked the termination.
The Biden administration later announced
a new designation
for Haiti, saying protections were needed because of security concerns, social unrest, human rights abuses, poverty and a lack of basic resources in the country.
Haitian T.P.S. holders live across the United States, including in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Many are
concentrated in the Miami region
, working in hospitality, agriculture and long-term care.
Senior-care providers have condemned the Trump administration’s efforts to end T.P.S. for Haiti, saying the move
would deplete their work forces
and worsen an already severe shortage of caregivers.
More than 10,000 Haitians live in Springfield, Ohio, which became the subject of scrutiny after President Trump
repeated false internet rumors
about the community. Many immigrants had
settled in Springfield
, drawn by the low cost of living and ample jobs.
T.P.S. for Syrians
About 6,100 Syrians are living in the United States with T.P.S., a much smaller number compared with Haitians. The Obama administration first granted the status in 2012 after civil war broke out in Syria. The designation was extended until the Trump administration
announced
in September that it would terminate the program.
Some immigration-policy experts
immediately criticized
the decision, saying that conditions in Syria were still unstable. Syrian-led advocacy groups have also denounced the change, which was
paused by a legal fight
.
In late 2024,
rebels ended
the Assad family’s brutal rule in Syria after more than a decade of civil war. Although Syria’s new leaders have sought to
move away from dictatorship
, concerns remain over ongoing violence and shortages of food and
safe water
.
Thousands of Syrians are authorized to work in the United States through the program, with many employed in the health care industry as doctors and nurses, according to advocacy groups.
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April 29, 2026, 5:02 a.m. ET
Ann E. Marimow
Reporting from Washington
The Trump administration is seeking to end humanitarian protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants.
Image
A candlelight vigil in Miami in February for Haitians living under Temporary Protected Status, which the Trump administration is trying to end.
Credit...
Giorgio Viera/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Supreme Court on Wednesday will consider whether the Trump administration can immediately end humanitarian protections that have allowed hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians to live and work legally in the United States.
President Trump has moved to terminate a program, known as Temporary Protected Status, that has provided humanitarian relief to migrants from more than a dozen troubled nations by allowing them to settle temporarily in the United States.
The two cases the justices will hear involve more than 350,000 Haitians and about 6,000 Syrians the Trump administration has sought to expel from the United States, potentially forcing them to return to dangerous conditions in their home countries. The court’s ruling, expected in late June or early July, will also likely have implications for more than one million people from other countries whose protections under the program the administration has sought to terminate.
The justices fast-tracked the cases, scheduling them for the final day of arguments in a court term that began in October and has already included challenges to other major aspects of Mr. Trump’s agenda. In February, the court ruled against the legality of the president’s sweeping tariffs, and the justices will soon decide whether Mr. Trump can end the longstanding guarantee of birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born babies of illegal immigrants and certain foreign visitors.
Like his birthright citizenship restrictions, the president’s plan to end T.P.S. protections is part of Mr. Trump’s broader effort to crack down on legal and illegal immigration. His heated rhetoric about immigrants and
disparagement of Haitians
, in particular, are likely to be highlighted during oral arguments.
At issue is a federal program created by Congress in 1990 with bipartisan support that now gives the homeland security secretary authority to grant temporary refuge to citizens of countries affected by armed conflict, natural disaster or other catastrophes, if they are already in the United States.
The law allows the secretary to periodically review such protections, terminating or extending them for certain countries. It lays out that the secretary must consult with federal agencies, review conditions in a country, and then make a decision based on those assessments.
Lawyers for the Haitians and Syrians, who filed lawsuits in Washington and New York, said Kristi Noem, who until March 24 was the homeland security secretary, failed to take those steps. Instead, they accuse her of ending the programs based on political considerations and orders from the president.
The class-action lawsuits were filed by T.P.S. holders, including engineers, students, doctors and caregivers, who want to continue to work and live in the United States because their lawyers say they could be killed if they are forced to return to Syria or Haiti.
D. John Sauer, the solicitor general, told the justices in legal filings that the courts cannot second guess the secretary’s decision-making steps. He pointed to the text of the
statute
, which prohibits “judicial review of any determination” of the secretary “with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation.”
In each matter, the administration said the continuation of the protections would be “contrary to the national interest.”
Lower court judges, however, sided with the migrants, finding that the secretary’s decisions had been preordained and not based on meaningful analysis. The judges postponed the terminations, prompting the government’s lawyers to ask the Supreme Court to intervene.
In a separate case, the Supreme Court previously
allowed the Trump administration
to move forward with its plans to lift protections for more than 300,000 Venezuelans who had been living in the United States. The justices ruled twice in that case in emergency orders, providing technically temporary authorization to revoke the protected status while litigation over the issue was underway.
But those orders did not include the justices’ legal reasoning, a common feature of the court’s so-called emergency or
shadow docket
, so it was unclear why the justices chose to handle the cases from Haiti and Syria differently by deciding to hold oral arguments and presumably issue a more formal opinion in coming months.
Both sides agree that the law allows the administration to remove countries from the T.P.S. program. But immigrant rights advocates are asking the court to order the administration to restart its review process for these countries to make new fact-based, good-faith assessments before ending protections for migrants from each.
In the Haiti matter, the lawyers said, the administration was also motivated by anti-black and anti-Haitian prejudice, in violation of constitutional prohibitions of discriminatory government actions. They cite the president’s false accusations during the 2024 campaign about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, eating the pets of neighbors and his comments in December about Haitian immigrants being undesirable because they come from a “filthy, dirty, disgusting” country.
In response, the administration said the termination decisions were based on foreign policy and national security considerations. Mr. Sauer rebuffed the claim of unconstitutional racial discrimination, saying the court should not consider campaign rhetoric and that the president’s quotes had been taken out of context.
“The president’s and secretary’s statements nowhere invoke race; they simply advocate for curbing illegal immigration, including from particular countries,” Mr. Sauer wrote in a court filing.
Haitians first received protections in 2010 after a devastating earthquake. The program has been extended several times, including by the Biden administration after the assassination of the country’s last elected president in 2021. Since then, Haiti has grappled with gang violence, political instability and food shortages.
Mr. Trump tried to end protections for Haitians in 2018, but was blocked by lower courts and those efforts stalled before the case reached the Supreme Court.
As for the Syrian migrants, the government initially put protections in place in 2012, citing the “extraordinary and temporary conditions” in the country resulting from “a brutal crackdown” by the nation’s president at the time, Bashar al-Assad. Those temporary protections were
repeatedly extended
, including during the first Trump administration, based on armed conflict and the aftermath of the 2023 earthquake.
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