March 17 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court will weigh the Trump administration’s authority to end the temporary protected status of Syrian and Haitian immigrants.
The high court announced Monday that it will take up the case as the Trump administration seeks to eliminate the protected status of more than 350,000 immigrants, putting them at risk of deportation.
The case centers around former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to end temporary protected status for Haiti, which was set to take effect last month. The day before this decision was to take effect, a federal court blocked the move while legal challenges play out.
Noem’s effort was challenged by a group of five Haitian nationals in December. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes ordered that it was “substantially likely” that Noem’s decision was motivated by race and her “hostility to nonwhite immigrants.”
“Kristi Noem has a First Amendment right to call immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement junkies and any other inapt name she wants,” Reyes wrote. “Secretary Noem, however, is constrained by both our Constitution and the [Administrative Procedure Act] to apply faithfully the facts to the law in implementing the TPS program. The record to-date shows she has yet to do that.”
The Justice Department has appealed Reyes’ decision. However the appellate court declined to intervene on the department’s behalf, leaving Reyes’ decision to maintain the protected status of immigrants from Haiti and Syria intact. The department then called on the Supreme Court to weigh in.
Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for the week of April 27.
Syria and Haiti are two of 13 countries Noem sought to remove temporary protected status from. Noem was fired earlier this month.
The Supreme Court has previously ruled on
the Trump administration’s immigration policies, allowing it to limit protections for immigrants from Venezuela last year.
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