The end of temporary protection for migrants
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants who fled violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation, The Associated Press reported.
The 6-3 decision overturns lower court orders and allows the Department of Homeland Security to speedily end temporary protected status, a program that protects about 1.3 million people from 17 countries.
Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog says: “The court ruled that the federal law creating the TPS program generally bars courts from reviewing the determinations by then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to end the TPS designations for Haiti and Syria. The court also ruled that the Haitian TPS holders are likely to lose on the claim that Noem ended TPS status for Haiti because the country’s citizens are overwhelmingly Black and therefore violated the Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment.”
Yet longtime reporter on the court Linda Greenhouse had written in an April New York Times opinion article that the Trump administration would lose this case: “Decades of writing about the Supreme Court have taught me that it’s foolish to predict the outcome of cases, and I have rarely done so. My prediction here rests on one word: procedure.
“The records in both the Haitian and Syrian cases reveal a brazen violation of procedural requirements on the part of Ms. Noem. The 1990 law that established the Temporary Protected Status program requires consultation ‘with appropriate agencies’ about conditions in a country before terminating protected status for the country’s nationals. But Ms. Noem ‘did not consult other agencies at all,’ Judge Ana Reyes of Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., found in her opinion in the Haitian case in February.
“Judge Katherine Polk Failla, in an order she read from the bench, made a similar finding on Ms. Noem’s termination of protection for immigrants from Syria without the required fact-finding.
“Both judges concluded that the secretary’s termination of protection was most likely ‘arbitrary and capricious’ within the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act.
“Procedure mattered to two federal district judges. Why do I think it will matter to the Supreme Court? Because there is strong evidence that it does,” Greenhouse said.
Kate Shaw, a Times opinion writer and professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, writes:
In the TPS case, the court has permitted the administration to terminate the immigrants’ protected status in the face of considerable evidence that it flouted statutory requirements for doing so and that key decision makers — including the president — were motivated by unconstitutional racial bias.”
“In ruling that President Trump could deport some 350,000 Haitians, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority first had to determine whether race had played a role in his decision to remove the humanitarian protections that had shielded them. If discrimination was ‘a motivating factor’ in Mr. Trump’s determination, the leading precedent said, it would violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause, says Adam Liptak of the Times in a separate article.
But Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote for the majority, concluded that Trump’s many statements about Haitians weren’t “overtly racial,” and that it was unlikely that race had been a motivating factor in the administration’s decision to end the protections, Liptak says.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote in dissent for the minority: “The statements fairly shout, in their racial undertones and overtones alike, that race entered into the president’s resolve to remove Haitians from this country.”
Kagan listed these comments from Trump: Haitians in Ohio were “eating the pets” of their neighbors. Haitians “probably have AIDS.” Haiti is a “shithole country,” which is “filthy, dirty, disgusting.” Haitian immigration is “like a death wish for our country.” Haitians are “poisoning the blood” of the nation.
What does the ruling actually mean for the Haitians and Syrians?
To put it in the mildest terms, these people who are forced to return home will be at great risk.
The State Department considers Haiti a “do not travel country,” as it does Syria.
Here is the assessment about Haiti of the human rights group Amnesty International.
And here is AI’s assessment of Syria.
What we American citizens can do
The Miami Herald says: In March, the House of Representatives passed a bill to require the Department of Homeland Security to keep and extend Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass, forced the House vote with a discharge petition.
Last week, legislation backed by more than a dozen Democratic senators was introduced to designate Haiti for TPS. It faces an uphill battle in the Senate.
And on Friday, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., announced that she would introduce legislation known as the TPS Review Act. The bill would amend the federal TPS law to make a broader scope of judicial review possible. It also would allow Congress to reverse TPS terminations with a vote and create a documented process for executive agencies to evaluate TPS designations.
We citizens are being urged to contact our lawmakers, asking them to back these measures.
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