Donald Trump puts 300,000 immigrants in danger if the U.S. abandons immigration legal Temporary Protected Status (TPS)

The Gavel, an article published in the Boston Globe: 

Sadly, the Trump administration doesn’t want these desperate refugees. But these people have nowhere else to go. By Kimberly Atkins Stohr

The harm that would result from the Trump administration’s harsh push to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitian and Syrian nationals living in the United States is not theoretical. Sadly, it’s a matter of life and death for upward of 330,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians in the United States who fled horrific conditions to protect themselves and their families. That is something that I hope comes across loud and clear❗ during oral arguments at the Supreme Court scheduled for later this month.

The peril is so great that the State Department has declared that no one should travel to either country for any reason.

“Based on almost any metric, Haiti is just a very dangerous place to be,” said Brian Concannon Jr., executive director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, a human rights non-government organization based in Marshfield, Mass.

“It’s the highest murder rate in the world,” Concannon told me. “Nearly 1.5 million people [have fled Haiti]. Gangs control 90 percent of the capital [of Port-au-Prince] and in many areas elsewhere. Haiti has the highest kidnapping rate in the world. It’s one of the worst places to be a kid. It’s one of the top five hunger spots in the world.”

An important fact here: While natural disasters and political upheaval are the sources of Haiti’s instability, experts have long cited that the United States has contributed to the situation through its ineffective political interventions and unsuccessful aid policies.

Similarly, according to a friend-of-the court brief filed by the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre and Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, there is no safe home for Syrian TPS holders to go if they are expelled by the Trump administration.

“Since the fall of the brutally repressive Assad regime in December 2024 Syria remains in a state of internal and international armed conflict and continues to suffer extraordinary and temporary conditions that preclude the safe, dignified and sustainable return of refugees,” the brief states.

Under the law governing TPS, those who apply and meet the fairly strict criteria for TPS protection are allowed to remain in the country legally, as long as the conditions that led to their home country’s TPS designation persist. 

But,  despite the dire living conditions in Haiti and Syria, former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem posted a notice that “after reviewing country conditions and consulting with the appropriate U.S. government agencies,” Haiti, Syria, and several other countries “no longer meet the conditions for its designation for Temporary Protected Status.” It’s worth noting that all of the countries Noem stripped of that designation are majority Black, Latin, or Muslim. (Evil 👿Noem❗)

Several federal judges ruled in favor of TPS recipients who challenged DHS’s efforts to strip their status, temporarily blocking them from being deported while litigation over the matter proceeds.

But in an unsigned shadow docket order last year, the Supreme Court allowed some Venezuelans to be stripped of their TPS protections. The bid to end that designation began during the Biden administration in 2023 but was continued by the Trump administration.

So, is there any hope that the Supreme Court will reach a different conclusion when it comes to those fleeing Haiti and Syria?

Perhaps. Unlike in the Venezuelan case, the Supreme Court in March took the Haiti and Syria challenges off the shadow docket, ordered the parties to fully brief the case on an expedited basis, and scheduled oral arguments for April 27.

Perhaps the court has given consideration to the words of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her dissent from the Venezuelan shadow docket order, which acknowledged the real-world human stakes.

“What should happen to 300,000 human beings ❗ while our colleagues on the Ninth Circuit, and then perhaps we, do the job of judging❓” Justice Jackson wrote. “Should those individuals get to remain in the United States, working legally, as the Government promised them a few short months ago? Or should they be left vulnerable to job loss, family separation, and deportation to a country the Government determined in January was ‘experiencing a complex, serious and multidimensional humanitarian crisis’ to which they could not ‘returb in safety’❓”

I’m hoping that her colleagues listen. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

An excerpt from The Gavel, a newsletter about the Supreme Court from columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr.