The Supreme Court heard two hours of argument April 29 over whether TPS terminations for 350,000 Haitians and 7,000 Syrians are judicially reviewable, with a ruling due by July.
The Supreme Court heard nearly two hours of oral argument on April 29 in *Mullin v. Doe*, the consolidated challenge to the Trump administration's terminations of Temporary Protected Status for approximately 350,000 Haitian nationals and 7,000 Syrian nationals [1]. The argument, held on the final scheduled argument day of the term, exposed a fractured Court over a question that could determine whether immigration officials can strip lawful protections from over one million people without any judicial check [1][2]. The administration's position, pressed by Solicitor General D. John Sauer, was that TPS designation and termination decisions are committed entirely to agency discretion and are unreviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act [1]. Counsel for the challengers, Ahilan Arulanantham of the ACLU, countered that procedural violations of the TPS statute remain subject to judicial review regardless of the discretionary nature of the underlying policy call [1].
The case consolidated challenges brought on behalf of Haitian and Syrian TPS holders, with the International Refugee Assistance Project among the organizations supporting the challengers [1]. The litigation arose after the Department of Homeland Security moved to terminate TPS designations for both populations, triggering suits that reached the Supreme Court through the federal courts below. District Judge Ana Reyes had ruled against the administration at an earlier stage, a decision that shaped the procedural posture heading into the high court [2].
The substantive stakes extend far beyond the named plaintiffs. A ruling that TPS terminations are categorically unreviewable would effectively insulate DHS determinations from courts across all 17 currently designated countries, potentially affecting the documentation status of roughly 1.3 million individuals who hold TPS [1][2]. The government's unreviewability argument, if accepted, would also carry implications for APA challenges in adjacent immigration contexts, setting a precedent that executive discretion forecloses judicial oversight even where challengers allege procedural rather than substantive defects.
Questioning from Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett suggested neither wing of the Court was prepared to embrace either extreme position without reservation [1]. The alignment of the remaining justices remained unclear from public reporting, and observers noted the argument ran unusually long, a signal that the Court views the issues as genuinely contested.
A decision is expected by late June or early July 2026, before the Court rises for its summer recess [1]. Whichever way it breaks, the ruling will define the boundary between executive immigration authority and Article III review for TPS, a legal question that has remained unresolved since Congress created the program in 1990.
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