The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday temporarily barred the Trump administration from moving forward with plans to deport roughly 6,000 Syrians and about 350,000 Haitians who had been granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) by Presidents Obama, Biden, and Trump. At the same time, the court set expedited arguments for April and indicated a decision is likely by the end of June.
Under federal law, presidents may designate TPS for foreign nationals already in the United States when their home country is affected by armed conflict, environmental disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions. The Trump administration has sought to terminate TPS for people from 13 countries, including Myanmar, Nepal, Honduras, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Venezuela.
In two emergency appeals, the administration asked the Supreme Court to suspend lower-court orders that have preserved TPS for Syrians and Haitians while litigation continues. Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the high court to take the cases now, saying lower courts have persistently disregarded the Court’s actions in other TPS disputes.
In an unsigned order, the court agreed that the broader legal questions presented by TPS warrant resolution and scheduled fast-track arguments for April. The court identified several issues for consideration: whether TPS designations and terminations are reviewable by the courts, whether TPS holders may have viable legal claims, and whether the equal-protection challenges brought by TPS recipients fail on the merits. The order noted no recorded dissents.
TPS has allowed Syrians to remain and work in the U.S. since 2012, when the designation was made during the Obama administration in response to the Assad regime’s violent crackdown; President Trump extended Syrian TPS in 2018. Haitians have held TPS since 2010, following a devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent unrest; President Biden extended Haitian TPS in 2021.
Late last year, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced plans to revoke TPS for both Haiti and Syria, concluding that neither country met the program’s statutory requirements.
Monday’s order marks a departure from two earlier TPS decisions in the past year: it is the first time the Court has not immediately granted the administration’s request to end a country’s TPS. In May 2025, the Court allowed the administration to terminate temporary deportation protections for Venezuelans while appeals proceeded; that unsigned order noted Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as the lone recorded dissenter. After further appellate review, that case later returned to the Supreme Court and in October the Court reached the same outcome.
With expedited oral arguments set for April, the Supreme Court will soon confront core questions about the judiciary’s role in reviewing TPS decisions, the legal claims available to TPS holders, and the merits of equal-protection challenges. A ruling by the end of June would resolve the status of hundreds of thousands of individuals and shape the future application of the TPS program.