Outside the Beltway

Supreme Court Empowers Trump Immigration Policies

The Justices cited pretexual justifications while ignoring plain motivation.

James Joyner · Friday, June 26, 2026 · 10 comments

NYT (“Supreme Court Expands Trump’s Power Over Immigration“):

In a pair of sharply divided decisions on Thursday, the Supreme Court allowed President Trump’s aggressive crackdown on immigration to move forward, permitting the administration to expel hundreds of thousands of migrants from the country and to turn away others at the southern border.

Taken together, the opinions from the court’s conservative majority signaled deference to the president’s ability to set the nation’s immigration policy, as the justices prepare in the coming days to issue more rulings that will decide how much power to give Mr. Trump across his boundary-pushing agenda.

In one ruling on Thursday, the justices allowed the Trump administration to end humanitarian protections that have permitted people from Haiti and Syria to live and work legally in the United States for more than a decade.

Mr. Trump has long pushed to terminate the program, known as Temporary Protected Status, as part of his efforts to restrict immigration. The program was created by Congress with bipartisan support in 1990 to provide temporary legal status to people whose home countries were deemed unsafe because of war, natural disasters or other crises.

The court’s 6-to-3 decision, divided along ideological lines, clears a path for the potential deportation of 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians, and it is likely to have implications for T.P.S. holders from about a dozen other countries.

The United States, which has a long history of political and military interventions in Haiti, initially extended T.P.S. protections for Haitians in response to a 2010 earthquake that killed an estimated 220,000 people. People from Syria were included in T.P.S. protections in the months after civil war broke out there in 2011. Both countries have faced violence and instability in the years since.

[…]

In a separate decision that also split 6 to 3, with the liberals dissenting, the court on Thursday also said the Trump administration could turn away migrants seeking asylum along the U.S.-Mexico border by physically preventing them from crossing into the United States as they sought protection from persecution.

[…]

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who read a lengthy summary of her dissent from the bench on Thursday, said the court had endorsed the administration’s decision to “slam the door shut on all who are fleeing persecution,” despite a system enacted by Congress to help people seek asylum in the United States.

[…]

In the majority decision allowing the president to strip deportation protections, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the federal law at issue prohibited courts from second-guessing an administration’s determination.

“This text is clear, and its plain meaning is very broad,” he wrote.

[…]

In response to Thursday’s rulings, Stephen Miller, the top White House aide, said that the United States was “fully closed to asylum seekers” and that Haitian refugees who received Temporary Protected Status should leave the country.

I claim next to no expertise on the vagaries of immigration law. I am, however, skeptical of the view that the Supreme Court is powerless to rule on the matter. Indeed, if they are, why take the case?

I’m sympathetic to the administration’s ostensible position on both cases. That is, Temporary Protected Status was indeed intended to be, well, temporary. The Syrian Civil War is over, and the Haitian earthquake was fifteen years ago. And, given that essentially everyone claiming asylum from the southern border is an economic migrant seeking to exploit the fact that we can’t possibly process that number of asylum claims, denying them entry to file seems prudent.

Alas, the actual implementation of these policies is bound to be cruel.

While those granted temporary entry should have presumed they would one day have to return home, the fact of the matter is that many of them have built families and lives here for well over a decade. Many have American spouses and children. Forcing them out of the country—and to choose to either leave their families behind or take them (again, including their American citizen children) to live in the developing world is unconscionable.

Similarly, while I support ending the exploitation of the asylum system, we very much ought to be open to genuine asylum-seekers. Under both international humanitarian and US law, those who have “suffered persecution or fear that they will suffer persecution due to: Race, Religion, Nationality, Membership in a particular social group, or Political opinion” are eligible. Whether they are eligible in the United States or have to apply in the first safe country along their route is in legitimate dispute.

Certainly, Miller’s proclamation that the country is “fully closed to asylum seekers” violates both the letter and spirit of the law. And of who we’ve long thought ourselves to be. And, continued villainization of the Haitian community (“They’re eating our pets!”) hardly gives the impression that this is motivated solely by respect for our immigration laws.

Beyond that, Columbia law professor Elora Mukherjee makes a persuasive case that “This Decision Is a Slap in the Face to Immigrants Who Followed the Law.”

For more than three decades, T.P.S. enabled highly vetted immigrants from countries ravaged by war or natural disaster to remain in America.

In 2010, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano granted Haitians the right to apply for T.P.S. after a devastating earthquake. Two years later, Syrians received the same designation in recognition of the brutal repression of the Syrian government. The United States government has repeatedly extended these T.P.S. designations because these countries remain too dangerous to permit safe return. During this time, T.P.S. has allowed hundreds of thousands of Haitians and thousands of Syrians to live and work lawfully in the United States.

[…]

In a country where we regularly lament a broken immigration system, T.P.S. has been a rare, long-running success story. In the years before T.P.S., the executive branch granted nationality-based safe haven on an ad hoc basis. That protection was streamlined and rationalized after Congress passed the law creating T.P.S. in 1990. Since then, T.P.S. applicants have been subject to an initial exhaustive vetting process, continual review thereafter and mandatory termination or disqualification if they later commit one felony or at least two misdemeanors.

People who passed the rigorous vetting process were eligible for protection from deportation, protection from detention based on immigration status and authorization to work.

And work they have. T.P.S. holders are medical professionals, reporters, business owners, caretakers and construction workers. According to the bipartisan immigration policy organization FWD.us, T.P.S. holders contribute about $29 billion annually to the U.S. economy, in addition to paying $7.8 billion in taxes.

To grant or remove T.P.S. designation for people from a particular country, the statute required an administration to consult with the State Department, receive a review of country conditions and provide an explanation regarding its decision. In siding with the Trump administration, the court has essentially thrown out that careful system of checks and balances.

She also cites some sob stories, which, while almost certainly unrepresentative, are compelling.

Again, that Haiti and Syria are dangerous places to live does not entitle their citizens to asylum, let alone in the United States. We can’t possibly take in everyone whose country is more dangerous than ours. But Mukherjee is right: having gone through the legally-mandated vetting process and then abided by our laws since getting here, these folks should be able to remain here absent some compelling reason I’m missing.

Alito and company continue, as they have since the first Trump administration, to ignore the repeated public language of the President and his senior officials seemingly expressing racial and cultural animus on the grounds that they can also offer plausible policy grounds for their actions. In a system where judges are empowered to decide on both law and equity, that’s frankly unconscionable.

UPDATE: WaPo (“Nursing homes, factory owners and immigrants brace for fallout from Supreme Court ruling“) reminds us that, besides legal and moral implications, there are economic consequences as well.

Immigrants began making plans to sell or rent their homes, secure bank accounts and figure out thorny issues like child custody arrangements. Business owners started calculating how many days they can continue to employ workers whose legal status is set to expire. And nursing home leaders warned they would have fewer beds to offer if health aides are forced to leave the country.

Panic rippled through communities from Florida to Ohio and beyond in the hours after the Supreme Court cleared the Trump administration Thursday to strip humanitarian protections from Haitians and Syrians — and potentially all 1.3 million immigrants from over a dozen countries who had been previously shielded from deportation.

“The residents will be losing caregivers that they really have become attached to,” said Colin O’Leary, executive director at Laurel Ridge Rehabilitation & Skilled Care Center in Boston. Managers at the facility were racing to figure out how much longer staff members from Haiti with temporary protected status could continue taking care of patients. “That’s a lot for our residents to handle.”

Attorneys said Haitians and Syrians could lose work permits in little more than a month, but the deadline remained unclear because lower court judges must issue orders to implement the decision. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, told reporters Thursday that Haitians and others with temporary protected status should be detained and deported once they lose the benefit.

[…]

Approximately 350,000 Haitians and roughly 6,000 Syrians have TPS, but the Supreme Court ruling ultimately could affect immigrants from 17 countries whose citizens were safeguarded under the program when Trump took office. His administration has sought to terminate protections for 13 of those countries.

[…]

News of the ruling devastated residents and staff at health care and elder care facilities across the country, since a large share of the Haitian immigrant population work in those industries. Nursing homes, labor unions and governors condemned the decision and called for an emergency resolution. Advocates called the decision one of the largest “de-legalization” efforts in U.S. history.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, characterized the decision as “a mistake” and said it is too dangerous to deport people to Haiti, including the more than 10,000 Haitians living and working legally in his state. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) vowed to fight the ruling, even as the path to challenging it is unclear.

“I’m telling you it’s going to cripple our health care system,” Hochul told reporters. “Who’s going to show up tomorrow to take care of grandma? Who’s doing that? Who’s stepping up?”

But at least our pets will be safe.