The US Supreme Court handed the Trump administration two significant immigration victories on Thursday, ruling that the president has broad, largely unreviewable authority to end humanitarian protections for hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals and to limit asylum access at the US-Mexico border. Both decisions fell 6-3 along ideological lines, with the court’s conservative majority siding with the administration.
What the Court Decided
In a pair of rulings handed down Thursday, the court held that federal law permits the government to turn away asylum-seekers on the Mexican side of the US-Mexico border, and that the president can end Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Syrians living in the United States.
In Mullin v. Al Otro Lado, the court upheld a policy allowing US border agents to block immigrants on the Mexican side of the border from seeking asylum on US soil. In Mullin v. Doe, the court upheld the administration’s decision to revoke Temporary Protected Status from hundreds of thousands of Syrian and Haitian immigrants, who may now face deportation to their unstable homelands.
In the TPS ruling, Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority that the government has discretion to stop the programme for people from countries it decides no longer need protection. The high court rejected claims that DHS officials wrongfully revoked TPS from Haitian and Syrian immigrants based on racial animus.
On the asylum ruling, Justice Alito wrote that the matter was “straightforward” as a question of statutory interpretation. Federal law holds that an immigrant who “arrives in the United States” may request asylum. Alito wrote that “in ordinary speech, no one would say that a person ‘arrives in’ a place — for example, a house, a city, or a country — before the person enters that place.”
Who Is Affected
The ruling allows the Department of Homeland Security to rapidly unwind protections for roughly 350,000 Haitians and about 6,000 Syrians who had been granted work authorisation and legal status under the programme. With their lawful presence stripped away, these hundreds of thousands of long-term residents face a stark reality: adjust their legal status through narrow channels like asylum or family sponsorships, leave the US voluntarily, or face the threat of deportation.
Temporary Protected Status currently covers about 1.3 million people from 17 countries, many of whom have lived in the United States for years under renewable protections. Since returning to office in January 2025, the administration has moved to terminate TPS designations for 13 countries, some of which had been in place for more than a decade.
TPS was enacted by Congress in 1990 to allow fully vetted and eligible migrants to live and work legally in the United States if they cannot return safely to their home countries. Every president, Republican and Democrat, embraced it — until Trump, who is trying to end the programme for hundreds of thousands of immigrants.
Conditions in Haiti and Syria
Immigration advocates have stressed that the court’s decisions must be understood against the conditions on the ground in the countries affected.
Rights groups and experts have warned that Haiti — a country where more than 2,300 people have been killed by gang attacks this year and 1.5 million more have been displaced — is not safe for nationals to return to.
According to recent UN data, gang violence in Haiti has driven internal displacement to a record 1.5 million people, while Syria remains mired in localised militia warfare that leaves 6 million residents internally displaced and basic medical infrastructure completely broken.
The legal team representing a group of Haitian nationals told CNN that the decision “will directly result in thousands of innocent people dying violent, needless deaths.”
Dissent and Controversy
Justice Sonia Sotomayor read from the bench — a rare occurrence — in an impassioned dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. In what NPR legal correspondent Nina Totenberg described as an unusually charged courtroom atmosphere, Justice Alito responded that had he known Sotomayor planned to speak, “I would have had more to say myself.”
In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that “aliens have no equal protection rights against the Federal Government.” Legal scholars noted that while a concurring opinion does not hold the force of law, it introduces ideas that could be cited in future cases to argue that noncitizens are not entitled to constitutional protections under the Fifth and 14th Amendments.
What Happens Next
The House passed a bipartisan measure in April aimed at preserving TPS for Haitians, but the proposal has stalled in the Senate. Immigration advocates are pushing Congress to act before the administration begins enforcement proceedings, though the political window for legislative action appears narrow.
Analysts at the Migration Policy Institute said the rulings raise practical enforcement questions around whether the government will focus on targeted arrests of those losing TPS, and how officials may try to “meter” immigrants at border ports of entry when relatively few people are currently arriving.
For the roughly 350,000 people directly affected by the TPS ruling, the immediate priority is legal — finding alternative pathways to remain in the United States, or preparing for the possibility that they may not be able to.
