In Mullin v. Doe, the Supreme Court ruled on party lines that the Trump administration can terminate Temporary Protected Status without following certain federal procedural rules. The decision targets TPS for Syrians and Haitians in the U.S., with potential de
By the time the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, the legal door had already been opened for Trump’s Department of Homeland Security to move faster than the program’s usual rules allow.
In Mullin v. Doe. the justices held that the Trump administration may ignore procedural requirements governing Temporary Protected Status. or TPS—an immigration protection that allows foreign nationals from war-torn or otherwise unsafe countries to remain in the United States temporarily until conditions at home improve.
The decision, issued along party lines, was written by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by all six Republicans. Justice Elena Kagan dissented, joined by the Court’s three Democrats.
Federal law lets the Department of Homeland Security grant TPS to noncitizens already in the U.S. when an “armed conflict,” a natural disaster, or some other catastrophe makes a home country unsafe. TPS is designed to be temporary. DHS is required to periodically review which countries can be included and to remove countries from the list once the crisis abates. People granted TPS may also work in the U.S. while they are lawfully present.
But the Trump administration has been moving to shrink the program. It has removed TPS designations for all 13 countries that have come up for review. President Donald Trump also issued an executive order directing his cabinet to ensure TPS designations “are appropriately limited in scope and made for only so long as may be necessary to fulfill the textual requirements of that statute.”.
Mullin v. Doe specifically challenged DHS’s decision to strip TPS from Syrians and Haitians living in the United States. Syrians previously had TPS status because of a civil war that ousted its president in 2024. Haitians received TPS status because Haiti lacks a stable government after a run of calamities. including a major earthquake and the assassination of Haiti’s president.
After Thursday’s ruling. the court effectively allowed those terminations to proceed without first complying with procedural rules written into federal law. That matters because large numbers of people who were permitted to live in relative safety in the U.S. on a temporary basis are now likely to face deportation. The decision could impact as many as 300,000 Haitians alone.
The dispute in the case turned on a tension that has recurred in immigration litigation: whether courts can step in when a government skips steps required by law.
Everyone involved in the case agreed on one point—DHS could eventually end TPS. A federal statute provides that “there is no judicial review of any determination of the [Secretary of Homeland Security] with respect to the designation. or termination or extension of a designation.” That language is clearly a problem for the plaintiffs.
Yet the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued for a narrower reading. They contended that the word “determination” in the statute refers only to DHS’s final conclusion that a country is safe enough to justify ending TPS—not to the procedural steps DHS must take before reaching that conclusion. Federal law. they argued. requires specific procedures before DHS makes that ultimate determination. and multiple lower courts had held that those procedural failures could be reviewed.
The central procedural dispute, as the plaintiffs presented it, was that DHS failed to adequately consult with the State Department before issuing its decision terminating TPS for Syrians and Haitians.
In her dissent. Kagan pointed out that the Court had ruled just last year that the word “determination” refers to the “settling and ending of a controversy. ” not the procedural steps that go into reaching it. She also cited McNary v. Haitian Refugee Center (1991). which held that “determination” refers to a “single act” and does not include the “procedure employed in making decisions.”.
On that view. the relief the plaintiffs sought was limited: not an order keeping TPS indefinitely. but an order requiring DHS to follow required procedures before taking protected status away. And because of earlier rulings like McNary, the plaintiffs argued they were entitled to that narrow form of review.
Alito’s position was different. He argued that earlier cases did not control because DHS’s failure to follow procedure was so bound up with its ultimate decision to terminate TPS that courts should not be able to review those procedural errors.
A second dispute ran through the case as well—whether the termination of Haiti’s TPS was unconstitutional because it was motivated by racism. Kagan’s dissent cited a long list of statements by Trump that she said were “shot through with racial stereotypes and tropes. ” including Trump’s false claim that Haitian immigrants are eating people’s dogs and a claim that they are “poisoning the blood” of the United States.
Alito, in response, leaned on a key factual counterpoint. He wrote that Trump’s DHS “terminated the TPS designations for every country that came up for review.” He listed nations across regions. including East Asia (Nepal and Burma). Central Asia (Afghanistan). the Middle East (Syria and Yemen). Africa (Somalia. Ethiopia. South Sudan. and Cameroon). Central America (Nicaragua and Honduras). South America (Venezuela). and the Caribbean (Haiti).
That led Alito to argue that even if Trump made offensive statements. DHS’s decision did not discriminate specifically against Haitians—or against Black people more broadly. His framing was that the policy’s effect was uniform: “all people who previously enjoyed TPS will be treated with equal cruelty. ” regardless of the stereotypes cited in the dissent.
The outcome was one more step in a broader pattern in which procedural questions become the battleground—especially when the stakes involve people who were allowed to stay for reasons tied directly to war, disaster, and state collapse.
And for the families living under TPS rules right now, Thursday’s ruling changed the timing of what comes next. The Court’s permission to move without certain safeguards means fewer pauses between the moment conditions at home were deemed unstable and the moment protection inside the U.S. runs out.
Supreme Court Mullin v. Doe Trump administration Temporary Protected Status TPS deportation Homeland Security Elena Kagan Samuel Alito Haiti TPS Syria TPS