{"id":12316,"date":"2026-04-28T07:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T07:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/04\/28\/from-legal-to-hunted-haitians-syrians-in-supreme-court-deportation-battle-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T07:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T07:44:08","slug":"from-legal-to-hunted-haitians-syrians-in-supreme-court-deportation-battle-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/04\/28\/from-legal-to-hunted-haitians-syrians-in-supreme-court-deportation-battle-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"From legal to hunted: Haitians, Syrians in Supreme Court deportation battle – USA Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

April 28, 2026, 3:01 a.m. ET<\/p>\n

\n

WASHINGTON \u2212 Syria was embroiled in a violent civil war when Adham, a Syrian now in his forties, came to the United States in 2018 on an academic scholarship.<\/p>\n

After earning his master’s degree, Adham \u2212 who asked to be identified by that pseudonym because he fears retaliation from the Trump administration \u2212 was allowed to stay in the U.S. through a humanitarian relief program for people from dangerous countries.<\/p>\n

Since then, Adham has worked as a pharmacist, grateful for having been given \u201ca place to settle and a moment to breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n

So he was stunned last September when the Trump administration abruptly ended the Temporary Protected Status program<\/a> for approximately 6,000 Syrians living in the United States, despite the still perilous conditions in his home country. Adham and his wife, who also works in health care, had 60 days to leave or face potential deportation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a matter of weeks, we were facing the prospect of going from legal residents to people hunted by law enforcement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court<\/a> will review on April 29 the administration\u2019s push to end deportation protections for Syrians and for 350,000 Haitians \u2013 including whether the decision to terminate protections for Haitians was racially motivated.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/a><\/p>\n

The case could affect the future of the entire humanitarian program, which is providing legal residency and the ability to work to about 1.3 million immigrants. Ending the program for everyone, immigrant rights advocates say, would be the largest stripping in U.S. history of legal status from people who currently have it.<\/p>\n

Curtailing the Temporary Protected Status program is a significant part of President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s crackdown on immigration, which also includes his attempt to limit birthright citizenship that the Supreme Court<\/a> is already considering.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIn Springfield, they\u2019re eating the dogs’<\/h2>\n

Trump has referred to the program as a \u201clittle trick.\u201d He\u2019s been particularly vocal about ending it for Haitians, a group he\u2019s repeatedly maligned \u2013 including falsely accusing Haitians living in Ohio of eating people\u2019s pets<\/a>. During the 2024 campaign, Trump promised<\/a> \u201clarge deportations in Springfield.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Springfield, they\u2019re eating the dogs,” Trump said during a presidential debate. “The people that came in, they\u2019re eating the cats. They\u2019re eating the pets of the people that live there.”<\/p>\n

Elected officials and others have defended the immigrants in Ohio and elsewhere, saying they have become valuable members of their communities and contribute to the local economy, taking on jobs in health care, elder care and other industries that are hard to fill.<\/p>\n

Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, has said the Haitians have helped revive Springfield.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpringfield is an industrial city, manufacturing city that was down,\u201d DeWine said<\/a> on CBS News’ “Face the Nation<\/a>\u201d in February. \u201cIt has been coming back. And frankly, one of the reasons it’s coming back is because of the Haitians who are working there.\u201d<\/p>\n

But critics say the humanitarian program, which was supposed to be temporary, is being exploited.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn practice, what\u2019s happened is once TPS has been granted in the past, administrations have always just consistently renewed it. They never terminate,\u201d said James Rogers, a lawyer with American First Legal, a group supporting Trump\u2019s policy priorities.<\/p>\n

Protections from war, natural disasters or other crises<\/h2>\n

Created in 1990, the program allows the homeland security secretary to protect immigrants already in the U.S. from being deported to countries experiencing war, natural disasters or other crises.<\/p>\n

The immigrants, who must pass background checks, are also allowed to work.<\/p>\n

The protections initially last for up to 18 months but are automatically extended unless the government determines that conditions in a country have sufficiently improved.<\/p>\n

Since Trump returned to office in 2025, his administration has moved to end protections for immigrants from 13 of the 17 countries that previous administrations deemed unsafe. Renewal deadlines for the remaining four countries \u2013 including Ukraine \u2013 will be triggered in the coming months.<\/p>\n

Haiti deemed too dangerous after earthquake<\/h2>\n

Haiti was first designated as too dangerous in 2010 because of a devastating earthquake. (Two of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s seven children were adopted from Haiti, one after the earthquake. Barrett told USA TODAY last year<\/a> that a previous case involving Haitian migrants was a good example of how judges must put their feelings aside and not be swayed \u201cby things that move you emotionally and situations in which you have very deep empathy.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Haiti remains under a national state of emergency, and the State Department warns Americans<\/a> not to go to the Caribbean country because of civil unrest, limited health care, crime, terrorism and the risk of kidnapping. Anyone traveling to Haiti or to other countries under the government\u2019s highest risk warning<\/a> are encouraged to leave DNA samples with a doctor and dental records with a family member in case they\u2019re needed to identify remains.<\/p>\n

\"One<\/figure>\n

Decapitated Haitian women dumped in a river<\/h2>\n

In February, the decapitated bodies of four Haitian women deported from the U.S. several months earlier were found dumped in a river, according to lawyers for the Haitians.<\/a><\/p>\n

Three months earlier, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem<\/a> had said parts of Haiti were \u201csuitable to return to\u201d and allowing Haitians to remain in the United States was no longer in the national interest. \u00a0The secretary cited the executive order Trump signed<\/a> his first day back in office \u2013 titled \u201cProtecting the American People Against Invasion\u201d \u2013 that laid the groundwork for his crackdown on immigration.<\/p>\n

Ending the program for Haitians, Noem also said, \u201creflects a necessary and strategic vote of confidence\u201d in that nation\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

Noem \u2212 who was fired<\/a> in March \u2212 reached a similar conclusion about Syria, which is also subject to the State Department\u2019s highest-level travel warning.<\/p>\n

While \u201csome sporadic and episodic violence occurs in Syria,\u201d she concluded, \u201cthe situation no longer meets the criteria for an ongoing armed conflict that poses a serious threat to the personal safety of returning Syrian nationals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United Nations estimated that more than 1.2 million Syrians have returned to their home country since the regime of Bashar al-Assad fell in 2024, according to the Justice Department. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Temporary<\/figure>\n

Terminations blocked by judges<\/h2>\n

Over the past year, Syrians and Haitians have challenged the terminations and judges blocked them from going into effect while their lawsuits hang in the balance.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department argues not just that the terminations were done legally, but also that the law creating the program bars judges from even reviewing any part of the government\u2019s decision-making process.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndeed, Congress barred judicial review in sweeping terms,\u201d the department\u2019s lawyers wrote in a filing. \u201cThe Court should respect Congress\u2019 choice to leave quintessential Executive Branch decisions to the Executive Branch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the immigrants contend that Congress didn\u2019t prevent courts from evaluating whether the government followed the required procedures for making its determination.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, lawyers for the Haitians wrote in an April filing, the administration could rule a country in or out \u201cbased on the flip of a coin or the Secretary\u2019s preference for a particular flavor of ice cream.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challengers say they can show Noem didn\u2019t adequately consult with the State Department about the conditions in Syria and Haiti and instead manufactured reasons to reach her pre-determined outcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you have in the situation now is really stark incongruities between what the (Department of Homeland Security) is saying and what the State Department is saying about these countries,\u201d said Ahilan Arulanantham, the lawyer who will be representing the Syrians before the justices. \u00a0\u201cWe think the statute requires them to actually find whether the country is safe to accept a return or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

A researcher at the homeland security department complained in a 2025 email, since turned over to the courts<\/a>, that she was being forced to make conclusions about the program that she believed were not supported by evidence.<\/p>\n

\"Secretary<\/figure>\n

Racial discrimination?<\/h2>\n

A separate question in the Haitians’ lawsuit is whether the administration\u2019s termination of the program was racially motivated, a potential violation of constitutional protections against discrimination.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most damning evidence is President Trump\u2019s own words, his own actions,\u201d said Sejal Zota, one of the lawyers representing the Haitian immigrants. \u201cFor years, he has used violent and dehumanizing rhetoric against immigrants of color.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a December speech<\/a> in Pennsylvania, for example, Trump referred to Haiti as a \u201chellhole.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden, just a few? Let’s have a few from Denmark,\u201d Trump said, recounting how in 2018 he had complained about immigrants coming from \u201cshithole\u201d countries. \u201cSend us some nice people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Were Trump’s comments taken out of context?<\/h2>\n

The Justice Department said Trump\u2019s comments are being taken out of context and were not connected to Noem\u2019s decision to end deportation protections for Haitians.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone remotely justifies an inference that the Secretary was motivated by an `invidious discriminatory purpose,\u2019\u201d Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in a filing.<\/p>\n

Trump is counting on the justices to reject the discrimination charge as a majority did in 2018 when upholding<\/a> his immigration travel ban against predominantly Muslim countries.<\/p>\n

And in 2020, the court blocked<\/a> the Trump administration from ending protections for immigrants brought to the court illegally as children \u2013 but did so without finding the move was racially motivated.<\/p>\n

Immigrant advocates say the previous situations were different.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn those cases, you had these sort of general anti-Muslim, or general anti-immigrant sentiments. These statements are about our clients specifically,\u201d Geoff Pipoly, one of the lawyers representing the Haitians, said on the Lawfare Daily podcast.<\/a> \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s not so easy to brush it off as the court has done in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Pepper<\/figure>\n

`A war on this congressional statute’<\/h2>\n

The dispute reached the high court on the preliminary issue of whether the administration\u2019s decision to end protections should remain on hold while the challenge is being fully litigated.<\/p>\n

How the court decides that question will affect not just the immediate futures of the Syrians and Haitians in the U.S., but also how easy it will be for the Trump administration to effectively do away with the temporary protected status program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis really is about a war on this congressional statute,\u201d Arulanantham said.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Adham said he and his wife go to bed each night \u201cnot knowing what tomorrow looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

A decision is expected by the end of June or early July.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April 28, 2026, 3:01 a.m. ET WASHINGTON \u2212 Syria was embroiled in a violent civil war when Adham, a Syrian now in his forties, came to the United States in 2018 on an academic scholarship. After earning his master’s degree, Adham \u2212 who asked to be identified by that pseudonym because he fears retaliation from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12316\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}