Temporary protection status (TPS) for refugees living in the United States is supposed to be just that — temporary. The protective status given to these refugees is generally assigned by their country of origin due to disasters and strife there, which made it necessary for them to flee to safety. At times in the past, Haiti and Syria fell in this category.

Syria was given TPS in 2012 under President Barack Obama because of the horrific civil war ripping apart the country. Haitians were granted TPS in 2010 after an earthquake left their country in ruins. Roughly 360,000 people from those countries have come to the United States with TPS status. They cannot be removed from the U.S. and cannot be detained because of their immigration status. TPS is granted on a very short-term basis (six, 12, or 18 months), but it is often extended, as is demonstrated by Haiti and Syria still being on the list after over 14 and 16 years, respectively.

TPS is also under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security and, therefore, under the discretion of the executive branch. However, when DHS has tried to exercise that right because of national security concerns, the lower federal courts have issued emergency stay orders, claiming that these TPS removal orders cannot be sunsetted because the Trump administration is removing the designation out of racism.

This is a continuation of an issue in which the lower courts are overstepping their writ. As The Wall Street Journal explained:

The TPS law says there “is no judicial review of any determination of the [Secretary] with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation, of a foreign state.” But lower courts have cut a gaping loophole in this statute for lawsuits citing procedural faults under the Administrative Procedure Act.

This has allowed plaintiffs and lower courts to second-guess the Administration’s reasons for terminating TPS. A federal judge in New York ruled DHS failed to engage in a “good-faith review of country conditions” before ending TPS for Syrians. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., blocked the Trump termination for Haitians on grounds that DHS failed to adequately “consult appropriate agencies.” The D.C. and Second Circuit courts of appeal declined to stay the lower court rulings.

So, as Trump’s administration has had to do so often, it is taking these issues to the Supreme Court.

The justices heard oral arguments for TPS removal for Haiti and Syria on Wednesday. While both sides agree that the president and his administration have the right to remove countries from the TPS program, the divergence lies in questions about Homeland Security’s motivations and procedures. As noted above by The Wall Street Journal, immigrant rights activist lawyers told the nine justices that they believed in Haiti’s case that the protective status revocation was racially motivated.

Ahilan Arulanantham, who argued in favor of the refugees on the expiring TPS status, cited President Donald Trump’s campaign commentary on the alleged story from Ohio, where Haitian migrant neighbors were supposedly eating the cats and the dogs. What that apocryphal story overshadowed was the fact that a small Ohio town had been taken over by Haitian refugees who refused to assimilate and made their community a worse place to live. President Trump has also been known to use colorful language to describe the island nation, calling Haiti a “s***hole country, which the opposition used to say that President Trump was a racist and his DHS secretary was just enforcing his racism on the Haitians. However, President Trump calling Haiti a bad country that doesn’t function or take good care of its people isn’t a racial slur. It’s a fact.

Haiti is practically run by gangs and riddled with misery. Who can forget the horrible murder of three missionaries — Davy Lloyd, Natalie Lloyd, and Jude Montis — whose lives were claimed by gangs in the summer of 2024? Who can forget the assassination of the Haitian president in 2021? His death shook the country down to its foundation.

D. John Sauer, the solicitor general arguing for the Trump Administration, pointed out that the argument presented by the immigration activists was taken out of context and that "the president’s and secretary’s statements nowhere invoke race; they simply advocate for curbing illegal immigration, including from particular countries.”

As insensitive as Trump’s description of the island nation may be, it doesn’t undermine the Trump administration’s argument that giving people from certain countries unending TPS is bad for national security.

As for Syria, even the justices noted that the situation there is vastly different from what it was in 2012. Bashar al-Assad is out of power, and there is some hope of stability, even if the guy running the country is a former al-Qaida terrorist who now denounces Islamic extremism. Syria is rebuilding and could use some of its expats’ skills to put the broken pieces back together.

At the end of the day, though, the law is very clear. The judicial branch is not allowed to weigh in or halt these status removals. Lower courts have gone over the skis by trying to circumvent that law through loopholes, and SCOTUS will likely put them back in their places. However, we will have to wait for an official ruling this summer.