SCOTUS Says Temporary Status For Migrants Is Temporary

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld President Donald Trump’s efforts to revoke temporary status for foreign nationals in the United States on Thursday. The decision was 6-3, with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson in the dissent.

The ruling in the consolidated cases Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot dates back to Trump’s bid to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from large swaths of Syrian and Haitian nationals residing in America under the program. As The Federalist previously reported, the challengers contesting the president’s decision argued that the statutory provisions governing TPS “do not bar courts from reviewing an administration’s actions on the program and that the government is required to undertake certain steps (ex. consultation and assessment of a country’s conditions) before implementing such policies.”

Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito determined that the TPS statute does, in fact, bar federal courts from reviewing “non-constitutional claims” like those brought by the challengers. He further noted that the “sole constitutional claim” brought in the Miot case — that the Trump administration’s revocation of TPS for Haitians was racially motivated — “will likely fail.”

“Viewing all the relevant evidence, we conclude that Miot respondents are unlikely to prove that race was a motivating factor in the decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation,” Alito wrote. “It follows that they are not entitled to interim relief on their equal protection claim.”

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh joined the court’s opinion in full. Meanwhile, Alito and Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett joined all parts except as to a section that argued, “In [Miot], we need not resolve whether the TPS statute meets that clear-statement rule because we conclude that Miot respondents’ constitutional claim is unlikely to succeed on the merits.”

While joining Alito’s opinion in full, Thomas authored a concurrence laying out “two more fundamental problems” with the lawsuit brought by challengers to Trump’s TPS revocation for Haitians.

The Bush 41 appointee noted that, in addition to being “meritless” under Supreme Court precedent, the Miot respondents’ equal protection claim “was also beyond the District Court’s jurisdiction.” He further argued that, “even assuming jurisdiction, the equal protection claim fails for the additional reason that aliens have no equal protection rights against the Federal Government.”

Writing for the dissent, Kagan argued that the TPS statute does permit federal courts to review “whether the Secretary adhered to the procedures it mandates” and that “the evidence is there, plain to see” to support the Miot respondents’ claim that Trump’s TPS revocation for Haitians is racially motivated.

“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,” Kagan wrote. “So the plaintiffs are entitled to stay in this country while these suits go forward. Respectfully, I dissent from the Court’s decision that they may instead be put on the next plane.”

The high court’s decision reverses the district courts’ rulings against the president and remands the cases back to those courts for further proceedings consistent with the majority opinion.