TPS had been set to end for Syrians and Haitians, following decisions by President Trump’s administration but district court judges blocked the move.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday handed down its decision on Mullin v. Doe, ruling that Syrian and Haitian nationals are not “entitled to orders postponing the terminations during litigation” in a case that affects their ability to stay in the country under a protected status after the Trump administration stripped them of the status last year.
The decision ends a legal protection covering thousands of migrants who have come to the U.S. after fleeing instability and violence in their home countries.
TPS had been set to end for Syrians and Haitians, following decisions by President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security last year.
However, lower court judges stopped those attempts, arguing that the Trump administration was acting out of hostility toward nonwhite immigrants. In her ruling, Washington, D.C. District Judge Ana Reyes also accused the Trump DHS of failing to consult other federal agencies about its attempts to strip TPS designations.
The Trump administration and its solicitor general argued that the DHS had consulted with the State Department before making its decision and that the stripping of TPS had nothing to do with racial bias and was reflective of a more promising political environment in both Haiti and Syria.
Why does the Trump DHS want to end TPS designations for Syria and Haiti?
In 2012, thousands of Syrians were granted TPS under the President Barack Obama administration during the Syrian Civil War, and those protections were extended during the first Trump presidency and the President Joe Biden administration.
According to the DHS, the situation in Syria has changed. The department identified the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2024 and the subsequent ascent of former rebel Ahmed al-Sharaa as the president of Syria, with whom Trump has met to normalize relations, as the inflection point that ended the need for TPS protections for the Middle Eastern country’s nationals.
“While some sporadic and episodic violence occurs in Syria, the situation no longer meets the criteria for an ongoing armed conflict that poses a serious threat to the personal safety of returning Syrian nationals,” DHS wrote in a termination order from last September.
Thousands of Haitians were granted TPS by Biden in 2024, following political upheaval in the Caribbean island nation and its capital of Port-au-Prince.
In 2025, Former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, under Trump, determined that Haiti no longer met the requirements for TPS designation, encouraging Haitians instead to seek lawful immigration status through other means. According to Noem, allowing Haitian nationals to stay in the United States was “contrary to the national interest of the United States.”
“The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home,” a DHS spokesperson said in June 2025. “We encourage these individuals to take advantage of the department’s resources in returning to Haiti.”
In April, Supreme Court justices on the more liberal side of the bench, such as Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, questioned Solicitor General John Sauer about a potential racial motive behind the Trump administration’s move to end TPS protections for certain countries.
Jackson pointed to claims Trump made against Haitian residents in Ohio, accusing the nationals living there of eating domesticated animals, like dogs and cats. Meanwhile, Sotomayor asked Sauer about statements the president made about recruiting more immigrants from countries in Scandinavia as well as the asylum protections the administration has granted to white South Africans.
These statements had been sticking points for lower federal courts, where judges had opted to block the end of TPS for select Syrians and Haitians.
Sauer argued that Trump’s statements have been “wrenched from context” and should not have a bearing on the case.
“You can look at each of those statements. They’re talking about problems of crime, poverty, welfare dependency,” Sauer argued before the court in April. “Problems that have been emphasized again and again, not just by President Trump, not just the secretary, but many others who favor a tough immigration policy.”
Justice Samuel Alito also challenged the racial bias argument, arguing that a majority of Syrians are broadly considered white.
In total, 17 countries have TPS designations in the United States, among which the Trump administration is actively in court working to end protections for nationals from at least seven, including Haiti and Syria. Attempts by the Trump administration to remove TPS designations for nationals from Ethiopia, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen have been subject to court cases that fall outside the purview of the Mullin v. Doe, SCOTUS case.
The Trump administration has already won court cases to end TPS protections for nationals from Nepal, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Who are Mullin and Doe?
“Mullin” refers to Markwayne Mullin, Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security, who was confirmed in March. Mullin replaced Kristi Noem, who was fired from her role by Trump. The case had been known as “Noem v. Doe” while Noem was in office.
The pseudonym “Doe” is frequently used by the Supreme Court to refer to an anonymous plaintiff. In this case, “Dahlia Doe” is one of seven Syrian nationals with TPS or pending applications for TPS who filed a complaint against the DHS over its attempt to terminate their immigration protections.
The case was consolidated with “Trump v. Miot,” named after Fritz Emmanuel Lesly Miot, a Haitian migrant permitted to live and work in the United States under TPS.
