Supreme Court allows Trump administration to end legal protections for Haitians and Syrians

By — Lindsay Whitehurst, Associated Press Lindsay Whitehurst, Associated Press Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/supreme-court-allows-trump-administration-to-end-legal-protections-for-haitians-and-syrians Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Supreme Court allows Trump administration to end legal protections for Haitians and Syrians Politics Jun 25, 2026 10:52 AM EDT WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation. The 6-3 decision overturns lower court orders and allows the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly end temporary protected status, a program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries. Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. The Trump administration argued that judges can't second-guess immigration officials' decisions about the protections, which were intended to be temporary. Immigration attorneys said the countries remain unsafe to return, and the administration ended them in an unlawfully hasty process tinged by racial animus. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump amplified false rumors that Haitian immigrants were abducting and eating dogs and cats. WATCH: Haitians in Ohio city live in fear and uncertainty amid court fight over protected status The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court after judges postponed the end of the program for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. The high court sided with the administration before and allowed the end of the program for people from Venezuela. Federal authorities deny that racial animus played a role. They also cited a Supreme Court decision from Trump's first term that rejected bias claims based on his social media posts and upheld a travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries. DHS has ended the protections people from 13 countries since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, including some that had been in place for more than a decade. READ MORE: Haitians and Syrians aren't only immigrants watching Supreme Court arguments on Temporary Protected Status The terminations were made even though countries like Haiti and Syria remain dangerous, immigration attorneys said. Four Haitian women who were deported from the United States in February were found beheaded and dumped in a river several months later, lawyers said in court documents. The House passed legislation with a rare bipartisan vote in April that would extend protections for Haitians, though the bill has languished in the Senate. The U.S. first granted protections to Haitians in 2010 after a catastrophic earthquake, and extended them multiple times amid ongoing gang violence that has displaced more than a million people, a