Advocates are warning of the end of the US Supreme Court TPS decision | Immigration Issues

The Supreme Court’s decision to sanction the administration of US President Donald Trump take it off holders of special legal status for Haitians and Syrians have created confusion in communities across the country.

Immigration advocates say the 6-3 decision to allow the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) will have a major impact on Haitians and Syrians, raising feelings of deportation and family separation, while possibly leaving US employers behind.

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But the decision should have more consequences, activists warn, creating a new tool “to empower the ICE deportation machine of Trump to remove the legal protection and work permits of thousands of people”, according to Hector Sanchez Barba, president of the group Mi Familia Vota.

“This has been a prominent part of the Trump- (White House counsel Stephen) Miller’s brutal campaign, to revoke their legal or temporary status, revoke work permits and force immigration judges to drop cases to expedite detention and deportation,” Barba said in a statement after Thursday’s ruling.

Here’s what you need to know.

What does this decision mean for Haiti and Syria on TPS?

Temporary Protected Status (TPS) was created by Congress as part of the Immigration Act of 1990. It allowed the executive branch, specifically the Secretary of Homeland Security, to declare that it is not appropriate for foreign nationals to return to their countries due to special temporary circumstances, such as war, natural disasters or other internal problems.

When a country is selected for TPS, its citizens are granted temporary employment in the US.

Haiti was first designated as TPS following a devastating earthquake in 2010, which killed more than 250,000 people. This situation has been renewed time and time again as the Caribbean has faced political, security and humanitarian challenges.

Syria has been nominated for this position since 2012, after almost 14 years of civil war.

All told, about 350,000 Haitians and about 6,000 Syrians are believed to be in this position.

Immigration advocates say the decision will send TPS recipients scrambling to find legal options to stay in the US or face deportation as a result of Trump’s deportation order.

Since both countries have been designated as TPS for more than a decade, this decision is raising the profile of family separation, especially for parents with US-born children.

“Ending these protections for thousands of Haitians and thousands of Syrians will disrupt families, disrupt workplaces and communities and put vulnerable people at risk,” said Nihad Awad, director of the Center for American Islamic Relations (CAIR).

“Many TPS holders have lived in our country for years, raised American children, built businesses, contributed to our economy and become important members of their communities.”

What does it mean for US employers?

A number of labor unions and unions have highlighted how the sudden change could affect US industries.

Neidi Dominguez, director of Organized Power in Numbers, called the decision “a gut punch that requires workers, immigrants and employers who depend on them to come back together through our organization”.

“They work in hospitality, food, education, construction, health care and all industries,” Dominguez said. “These are our co-workers, our neighbors and the backbone of the economy across the country, from jobs to infrastructure and health.”

The healthcare industry is expected to be particularly affected by the decision, as the Migration Policy Institute estimates that Haitian immigrants will fill more than 103,000 healthcare jobs in 2021.

“This illegal decision will leave thousands of refugees — not just registered nurses and health care workers, but also teachers, airport workers, hard workers — vulnerable to Trump’s murderous, money-making machine,” the National Nurses United organization said in a statement.

“This proposal will seriously disrupt the health workforce and increase the burden on the nurse,” it said.

Why is this going on in the Haiti and Syria TPS?

Lower courts have previously ruled that the Trump administration did not follow the proper process, including reviewing agencies to determine whether the conditions in both countries were fair, when terminating TPS in Haiti and Syria.

But, as Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council, explained, the Supreme Court’s majority decision did not respond even if the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security followed the legal procedures to terminate TPS.

“In fact, the Court held that questions of the DHS secretary’s compliance with the law cannot be heard by the courts in the first place,” he wrote, “meaning that in the future even an illegal decision to grant or suspend TPS could be resolved on judicial review”.

The decision will allow the Trump administration to “return to federal court in other cases and violate the rulings against ending TPS for countries such as Venezuela, Somalia, Ethiopia and others”, he added.

Angelica Sedgwick Oun, US immigration researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the decision “leaves the DHS secretary with unlimited power to make a life-and-death decision about whether it is safe to send someone to a country facing violence, such as Haiti, or conflict, such as Syria, without clearly discussing human rights there”.

What’s next?

Because the Supreme Court is the highest court of appeals in the US, there are limited avenues of access to the courts.

But many advocacy groups have called on Congress to intervene.

In a rare double whammy on immigration, the US House of Representatives in April extended Temporary Protected Status for Haitians through 2029. The Senate has yet to act.

Some have called on Congress to enact legislation requiring the courts to review any TPS removal.