On June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled in Mullin v. Doe that the Trump administration can proceed with termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti and Syria during litigation. The Court reversed the related lower court injunctions and by its holding also instructed federal courts to limit their future review of TPS terminations. Practitioners warned of the near-term implications for all TPS holders from countries whose designations have been terminated during the Trump administration.
The Court held that the TPS statute bars judicial review of non-constitutional claims, and that plaintiffs were “unlikely to prove that race was a motivating factor in the decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation, and it follows that they are not entitled to interim relief on their equal protection claim.”
Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent noted, among other things, that “the TPS statute mandates that [the Department of State] also advise on…whether, since an earlier TPS designation, the conditions in a country (here, Haiti and Syria) have become safe. The State Department did not do that here, so the Secretary did not fulfill her consultation requirement.” She also pointed out that “the majority claims to see no evidence that race played any role in the Haiti decision. But the evidence is there, plain to see, in the President’s statements, which the majority (and for that matter, his own lawyers) cannot even bear to repeat. Once that much is established, the case for interim relief is made: There is no dispute that the plaintiffs will suffer irreparable harm absent postponement of the TPS decisions. So the plaintiffs are entitled to stay in this country while these suits go forward.”
The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) said in a statement that it was “deeply alarmed” by the ruling and that it “undermines national and economic interests.” AILA President Jeff Joseph said, “Even the Department of State says that no part of Syria is safe, and has issued security advisories due to unrest in Haiti. Conditions are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Yet, the Supreme Court’s decision today could force these individuals back to these devastating conditions in a matter of days. It also allows the Administration to arbitrarily terminate all other TPS designations with impunity going forward.”
Benjamin Johnson, AILA Executive Director, said, “I want every member of Congress to look around their community and state, to listen to employers and residents about what harm will come if TPS holders are forced back to dangerous conditions and removed from the communities they have become integral to.”
Haitian and Syrian TPS holders’ work authorization is set to expire on Wednesday, July 1, 2026. The ruling is likely to accelerate the resolution of pending challenges to the administration’s decisions to end work authorization and status for other TPS-designated countries. As such, others with TPS also likely will see their work authorization end in the coming weeks and months.
