In a decision that has stirred significant attention, the U.S. Supreme Court, with a 6-3 ruling, has upheld the authority of President Donald Trump to terminate “Temporary Protected Status” (TPS) for over 450,000 Haitian migrants. These migrants were initially embraced under policies supported by President Joe Biden.
The justices specified that congressional law restricts any judicial review of TPS decisions made by the White House:
According to the TPS statute, there is a clear prohibition against considering respondents’ non-constitutional claims. Such legal framework allows “no judicial review of any determination with respect to the termination” of a TPS designation, as outlined in 8 U. S. C. §1254a(b)(5)(A). The term “determination” could refer to either a singular decision or the entire process leading up to a final resolution. In either interpretation, §1254a(b)(5)(A) effectively blocks all non-constitutional claims from respondents.
For many individuals across the nation, including in Springfield, Ohio, this decision is welcome news. This town has experienced sweeping changes, largely attributed to the influx of at least 10,000 Haitian migrants. Their arrival has led to decreased wages, increased rent, and a significant shift in the cityscape, affecting local employment, housing, education, and public services.
With the Supreme Court’s decision, Haitian migrants will soon lose their work permits, access to government assistance, and legal residency, as well as their drivers’ licenses. Consequently, employers may face fines should they continue to hire Haitians instead of American citizens. At the same time, landlords could find themselves negotiating lower rents as the local housing market shifts back toward accommodating American residents over the departing Haitians.
Many Haitians were actually provided visas by Biden’s officials to fly from Haiti to American towns — despite the huge economic and civic harm to the millions of left-behind Haitians. The crippling outflow included many doctors, cops, teachers, and politicians.
But the decision is also an economic loss for many investors and a management headache for many employers who hired Haitian migrants instead of competing for Americans in the national labor market.
In April, – News reported that pro-TPS lobbyists had submitted a legal brief by pro-migration economists which said Biden’s 1.4 million TPS migrants from Haiti, Venezuela, and El Salvador create $20 billion in annual profits for investors.
In June, the left-wing Guardian newspaper described how the elder-care industry exploits TPS migrants to avoid U.S. marketplace pay rates.
Rachel Blumberg, the president and CEO of Sinai Residences, a seniors’ assisted living and long-term care facility in Boca Raton, Florida, was devastated to learn that the government was ending the [Haitian inflow].
…
Esther Birnbaum, a 96-year-old who lives in Palm Beach county, north of Miami, is dependent on Maryse Balthazar, who is from Haiti, for her primary care. Balthazar moved from Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, to the United States in 2010 after the earthquake. She was a journalist and the president of the Association of Haitian Women Journalists, but after moving to the United States she got a nursing assistant certificate and began working as a home health aide… “I can’t imagine my day-to-day life without her. I don’t know how she does it, really. From hooking me on to my lymphatic drainage machine to keeping me active, it’s all her,” Birnbaum said, adding that she would be “devastated” if Balthazar has to stop working.
Balthazar, who has two children, says she has nowhere else to go. “There is no plan B. This is where my life is, I wouldn’t know what to do if TPS isn’t protected,” she said.
The court’s three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the majority opinion, claiming that “racism” played a role in Trump’s rejection of TPS for Haitians:
For over a decade, the Government has provided humanitarian relief to Haitian and Syrian nationals in the United States through the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program…
Today the Court undoes that preliminary relief — insisting that the terminations take effect now — based on two mistakes about the plaintiffs’ likelihood of success.
First, the majority asserts that the Secretary’s compliance with the TPS statute is in every respect unreviewable by the courts. But in fact the statute allows judicial review of whether the Secretary adhered to the procedures it mandates — which is what the plaintiffs dispute here.
Second, 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 decision now enables the administration to begin moving Haitians back to Haiti.