The End of Temporary Protected Status Will Unleash More ICE Arrests and Deportations

On June 25, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that decisions made by the Department of Homeland Security regarding Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, are not subject to judicial review. As the American Immigration Council notes, because of the Supreme Court’s procedures, that decision will not formally go into effect until 32 days after the ruling was issued. This small window has allowed the lower courts to continue blocking the Trump administration’s efforts to prematurely end humanitarian protections for Haitians and other groups.

That all ends on July 27—today, 32 days after Mullin v. Doe, hundreds of thousands of TPS recipients from Haiti and several other countries are expected to lose their work permits. More terminations will follow in the upcoming months. This includes protections for people from Somalia (August 20), El Salvador (September 9), Sudan (October 19), Ukraine (October 19) and Lebanon (November 27). The latter of which are currently facing violent military invasions from Russia and Israel respectively.

With the Supreme Court’s mandate now going into effect, there will be little, if anything, the lower courts can do to block these terminations.

To be frank, the situation is bleak. While the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contends that conditions in Haiti have “improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home,” the State Department actively advises Americans to avoid traveling to Haiti “for any reason due to the risk of crime, terrorism, kidnapping, unrest, and limited healthcare.” Similar travel advisories have been issued for Syria, Burma, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Ukraine, and Yemen.

This is what passes as “generosity” in President Donald Trump’s “Christian nation”: intentionally putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of hardworking, law-abiding people in danger while offering them a pittance to leave their lives and loved ones behind.

The Trump administration knows these countries are not safe. It knows that deporting TPS recipients to these places puts their lives at risk. It simply does not care.

On July 17, DHS General Counsel James Percival posted on Twitter-X: “For those with an expiring TPS designation, these final days provide one last opportunity to accept $2,600 and a free flight home. We strongly suggest you take advantage of this generous offer.” This is what passes as “generosity” in President Donald Trump’s “Christian nation”: intentionally putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of hardworking, law-abiding people in danger while offering them a pittance to leave their lives and loved ones behind.

Thus far, congressional efforts have failed to stop this blatant cruelty. On July 23, Senate Republicans blocked an attempt to extend TPS for Haitians.

To make matters even worse, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has reportedly made plans to ramp up operations to arrest and deport Haitian migrants. Documents obtained by CBS News suggest that these operations could start as early as this week—not even a month after ICE agents murdered Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero.

These plans include targeting migrants in Ohio, home to one of the nation’s largest Haitian communities. These are the same communities that, in 2024, then-candidates Trump and Vice President JD Vance targeted with their racist lies about “they are eating the dogs” and “eating the cats.” And to be clear, even Vance admits that they were lies: “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do.” This is the same vile bigotry that Justice Samuel Alito and the other conservatives on the Supreme Court found to be not “overtly racial.”

Importantly, this is not the first time that ICE has reportedly made plans targeting Ohio. In late January, news outlets reported that ICE was preparing to launch an operation in the state lasting at least 30 days. That operation would have started sometime after TPS for Haitians were slated to end on February 3. Fortunately, a district court intervened and extended those protections, thereby preventing this Minnesota-style raid from occurring.

This is the reality that TPS recipients now face: either they willingly self-deport to an unsafe country or remain in the US and be hunted by ICE agents.

While there is still time (and to be clear, and it’s quickly running out), I urge everyone to call their representatives and senators and demand that they extend TPS for Haitians, Syrians, and others whose protections are at risk.

What few legal options they may have had are quickly disappearing. The Supreme Court’s decision bars review of any non-constitutional claim. Any challenge regarding racial discrimination “will likely fail.” Meanwhile, the Trump administration has indefinitely paused visa processing for nationals from 75 countries, including Haiti, Syria, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan. On February 2, the National Immigration Law Center and several other advocacy groups filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of this policy. That case—Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC) v. Rubio—is currently pending in court.

The administration is also making it harder to obtain a green card, not processing new Deferred Action for Childhood Arivals applications (while also intentionally delaying the processing of renewals), and severely restricting refugee and asylum programs. As the CATO Institute notes, the Trump administration’s policies have significantly cut legal immigration far more than unauthorized entries. Their analysis found that these cuts are harming US citizens, undermining US prosperity, and increasing the US deficit.

Ending TPS for Haitians and other groups will only worsen these problems. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), for instance, remarked that this decision will “create a crisis in our hospitals, nursing, and in the I/DD [intellectual and developmental disabilities] community” where roughly one-third of Haitian TPS holders work. Gov. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) has warned, “If [Haitians] lose temporary protected status and they no longer can work and the companies can’t employ them, that’s a blow to the economy, that’s a blow to the state.”

The tragic irony in all this is that the Trump administration’s policies serve no one. TPS is helping people in dire need—people who are contributing to the US. Deporting them only makes the country poorer. If ending those protections leads to more ICE agents flooding our cities, then all of us will be less safe.

As things stand now, Congress remains the most—and perhaps only—viable option for helping TPS recipients. While there is still time (and to be clear, and it’s quickly running out), I urge everyone to call their representatives and senators and demand that they extend TPS for Haitians, Syrians, and others whose protections are at risk.

Helping these people is the morally right thing to do. It is also politically and economically in the best interest of the country and international community. For their sake and our own, we must extend TPS.