Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, IMMIGRATION—U.S.: Justices allow terminations of TPS for Syria and Haiti to go into effect, (Jun 25, 2026)

By Karen Servidea, J.D.

High court holds that TPS beneficiaries’ non-constitutional claims are barred by TPS statute and equal protection claims are unlikely to succeed.

The temporary protected status (TPS) statute bars judicial review of non-constitutional claims challenging the termination of TPS designations for Syria and Haiti, and equal protection claims challenging the terminations are unlikely to succeed on the merits, the Supreme Court has held. Accordingly, the Court reversed lower court decisions that had postponed the terminations during the litigation of the TPS beneficiaries’ claims, thus allowing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to proceed with the terminations immediately (Mullin v. Doe, Nos. 25-1083 and 25-1084 (U.S. June 25, 2026)).

TPS terminations and challenges thereto. When a country is designated for TPS, eligible individuals from that country who are present in the United States on the effective date of the designation generally may not be removed from the United States and may receive work authorization for the duration of the country’s designation. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1254a, the Secretary of Homeland Security (Secretary) may designate a country for TPS if he or she finds that any of three sets of criteria (generally involving an ongoing armed conflict in the country; an earthquake, drought, epidemic, or other environmental disaster in the country; or other extraordinary and temporary conditions in the country) is met.

Both Syria and Haiti were previously designated for TPS. In September 2025, former Secretary Kristi Noem announced her determination that Syria no longer met the conditions for TPS and that its designation would be terminated effective November 21, 2025. And, on November 28, 2025, Secretary Noem announced her determination that Haiti no longer met the basis for TPS and that its designation would be terminated as of February 3, 2026.

In Mullin v. Doe, beneficiaries of Syria’s TPS designation challenge the termination of Syria’s TPS designation on Administrative Procedure Act (APA) grounds. They allege that the Secretary failed to consult with other appropriate agencies before ending the designation, as required by the TPS statute, and improperly considered national interest as justification for the termination. They also claim that the decision was not based on an objective review of country conditions, but rather was a predetermined, political decision.

In Trump v. Miot, beneficiaries of Haiti’s TPS designation challenge the termination of such designation on APA and equal protection grounds. Their APA claim asserts that the termination was a preordained outcome justified by pretextual reasons and that the decision was made without the requisite consultation with appropriate agencies. In their equal protection claim, the TPS holders allege that the termination was improperly motivated by animus and discriminatory intent based on race and ethnicity.

In each case, a district court granted the respective beneficiaries’ motion to postpone the termination during the pendency of the lawsuit. The government sought Supreme Court review of those decisions. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and consolidated the cases for argument, which it held on April 29, 2026.

Judicial-review bar. Justice Samuel Alito announced the judgment of the Court, reversing the lower courts’ postponement orders, and issued an opinion of the Court that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. The Court held that courts are barred from reviewing the TPS beneficiaries’ non-constitutional claims due to language in the TPS statute stating that “[t]here 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.”

The Court’s analysis focused on the meaning of the word “determination.” It explained that the term may be used as a synonym for “decision” or to describe the chain of events leading up to a decision. Under either definition, the Court continued, the statute bars the beneficiaries’ non-constitutional claims. “Each claim concerns a discrete decision made by the Secretary—for example, her decision to consult the State Department in a particular manner and her decision that country conditions in Syria and Haiti justify termination of their TPS designations,” it said. In addition, “all those steps were part of the process that led to her final decision to terminate these countries’ TPS designations.” If “determination” instead referred only to a final decision, the Court explained, the result would be the same: “In that event, all the preceding decisions would be ‘with respect to’ that decision.”

The Court went on to reject the beneficiaries’ theory that the judicial-review bar applies only to substantive claims, as opposed to those based on procedure. “A ‘determination’ may concern procedural or substantive questions,” the Court explained. Similarly, it disagreed with the beneficiaries’ argument that the judicial-review bar applies only to determinations about conditions in the country designated for TPS. The Court viewed that argument as giving a commonly used term (“determination”) a special meaning, conflicting with the Supreme Court’s statutory-interpretation precedents.

Jurisdictional question as to constitutional claims. One part of Alito’s opinion was joined only by Roberts, Thomas, and Kavanaugh. In that part, Alito stated that the Court need not resolve whether the TPS statute met the rule that where Congress intends to preclude judicial review of constitutional claims its intent to do so must be clear. That is so, Alito explained, because the Court concluded that the Miot respondents’ constitutional claim was unlikely to succeed on the merits. Alito further opined that such an approach was permissible because, when interim relief is sought, a court does not make a final decision on any matter necessary to the ultimate judgment.

Equal protection claim. Writing again for the majority of the Court, Alito turned to the merits of the Miot respondents’ equal protection claim. The parties disputed the standard of review that applies to that claim, as well as the outcome under each standard. The government argued that the deferential test used by the Supreme Court in Trump v. Hawaii, 525 U.S. 667 (2018), applied. The beneficiaries, by contrast, posited that the Court should apply heightened scrutiny under Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U.S. 252 (1977).

The Court sidestepped that question, instead assuming for the sake of argument that the heightened Arlington Heights standard applied. Under that standard, the Court asked whether a discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor in the decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation. In applying the standard, the Court noted that “because application of that standard calls for consideration of the context in which a challenged statement was made..., the immigration context is an important factor.”

In support of their claim that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on race, the Miot beneficiaries pointed to statements made by President Donald Trump and former Secretary Noem. The Court categorized such statements and referred to some as “derogatory comments about immigration and its effects” and others as “malign[ing] Haitians who have come to the United States.” According to the Court, however, “[n]one of the... statements... was overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications.” It went on to note that “one may oppose TPS and favor tighter restrictions on immigration for economic or other reasons that have nothing to do with race.”

Accordingly, the Court concluded that the Miot beneficiaries were unlikely to prove that race was a motivating factor in the decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation and, therefore, that they were not entitled to interim relief on their equal protection claim.

Separate opinions. In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately to express his view that Congress barred all judicial review of TPS termination decisions, including constitutional claims, and that, even if jurisdiction existed over the equal protection claim, the claim failed because “aliens have no equal protection rights against the Federal Government.”

Pointing to the personal stories of the individual plaintiffs, Justice Elena Kagan, in a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayer and Ketanji Brown Jackson, took the position that the TPS recipients faced irreparable harm and should have been permitted to stay in the United States while they continued to litigate their claims to annul the termination orders. The dissenters rejected the majority’s interpretation of the judicial-review bar and would not define the term “determination” to include “a determination plus anything and everything the decisionmaker does or is required to do beforehand.” Further, with respect to the Haiti litigation, the dissent also pointed to statements made by President Donald Trump with respect to Haiti to show “impermissible race-based considerations tainting the [termination] decision.” According to the dissent, the statements “fairly shout, in their racial undertones and overtones alike, that race entered into the President’s resolve to remove Haitians from this country.”

Attorneys: Ahilan Arulanantham, UCLA School of Law, for Dahlia Doe, et al. Geoffrey Pipoly (Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLC) for Fritz Emmanual Lesly Miot, et al. U.S. Solicitor General, Department of Justice, for the United States.

The cases are Nos: 25-1083 and 25-1084.

Judge: Alito, S.

Companies: U.S. Department of Homeland Security

MainStory: TopStory Immigration SupremeCourtNews Procedure GCNNews