The Supreme Court heard arguments in two cases over TPS termination for 350,000 Haitian and Syrian nationals, with justices divided on judicial review and agency process.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments April 29 in two consolidated cases challenging the Trump administration's termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haitian and Syrian nationals, a policy affecting more than 350,000 migrants [1]. The core dispute is whether federal courts may review the Department of Homeland Security's decision to end TPS designations, or whether that decision falls within unreviewable executive discretion [1][2]. The justices emerged from argument sharply divided, with no clear majority coalescing around either position [2].
The cases, Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot, arrived at the Court after lower federal courts blocked or scrutinized the TPS terminations [1]. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued for the administration, contending that the TPS termination power is committed exclusively to the executive branch and beyond judicial reach [1]. The consolidated cases present the Court with its most consequential immigration-powers question since Trump v. Hawaii in 2018 [1].
The liberal wing mounted direct challenges to the government's position. Chief Justice John Roberts pressed Sauer on whether the administration's argument amounted to a significant expansion of Trump v. Hawaii, signaling concern about the breadth of the claimed authority [1]. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned the government's assertion of unreviewable discretion, while conservative justices, including Amy Coney Barrett, probed whether the administration had satisfied the statute's mandatory interagency consultation requirement before rescinding the designations [1][2]. That procedural question offers the Court a narrower ground for ruling against the administration without resolving the broader reviewability issue [2].
The significance of the cases runs directly to the structure of immigration enforcement. A ruling in the administration's favor would effectively foreclose federal court challenges to future TPS terminations, removing a check on executive action that has sheltered hundreds of thousands of nationals from countries experiencing ongoing armed conflict or environmental disaster [1][2]. A ruling on the consultation-process defect, rather than on reviewability itself, would leave the broader separation-of-powers question unresolved [2].
A decision is expected by late June 2026 [1]. The fractured posture of the bench suggests the Court may not deliver the categorical win the administration sought, and any opinion short of full deference will likely return the TPS terminations to district courts for further proceedings [2].