WASHINGTON:- The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for immigrants who came to the United States after violence and natural disasters in Haiti and Syria.
The 6-3 decision by the Supreme Court justices overturned a lower court order and allowed the Department of Homeland Security to quickly end Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion rejected the argument that Trump’s derogatory comments about Haitians made the decision unlawfully biased, saying those statements were “insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people.”
However, Justice Elena Kagan strongly dissented, calling Trump’s comments “extremely hateful and full of racial prejudice,” which “the majority refused to even mention in writing.”
The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court after judges blocked the end of the program for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. The high court had previously sided with the administration and allowed the end of the program for people from Venezuela.
Federal officials have denied that bias played a role and argue that TPS should be temporary.
James Percival of DHS praised Thursday’s ruling. He said the program has become a “de facto amnesty” in many cases. It’s a victory for the rule of law and common sense.
Today’s Supreme Court ruling has given President Donald Trump more impetus to take more and faster action on immigration.
Since President Trump returned to the White House for a second term, Homeland Security has decided to end the TP S program, which has been in the works for more than a decade, with some protections in place for people from 13 countries.