Widespread outrage over Supreme Court’s ‘shameful’ termination of TPS for Haitians

“Again and again, this MAGA-corrupted Supreme Court has proven there are no lengths it will not go to disgrace itself in fealty and service of Donald Trump,” Democratic Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, told Caribbean Life.

In the court’s 6-3 majority decision, along ideological lines, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote that the federal law at issue is unequivocal.

“This text is clear, and its plain meaning is very broad,” he wrote, dismissing claims that the Trump administration’s decision was based on anti-Black and anti-Haitian biases and discrimination.

He claimed that statements made by Trump and his administration were not “overtly racial,” and that, “in substance, all expressed policy views could rest on race-neutral justifications.”

But writing for the three dissenting justices, Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed to Trump’s derogatory and disparaging statements about Haitians.

“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,” she wrote, lamenting that the Supreme Court, clearly, gave Trump a blank check to “slam the door shut on all who are fleeing persecution,” despite congressional legislation to aid asylum seekers in the US.

Clarke, who represents the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn and also chairs the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), said the ruling ignores law and abandons human decency.

“From the moment they arrived in this nation, Haitian and Syrian TPS holders — most of whom arrived at the invitation of our government — have dedicated themselves to contributing to it,” Clarke said. “They have built businesses, built families, and built up their communities. And, through their undeniable strength of character and resilient spirit, they have become an inseparable part of this country’s social fabric.”

Clarke said while the crises confronting Haitians and Syrians’ home nations escalate, “they have come to embody exactly what it means to be Americans, just as the many waves of immigrants before them have done since this country’s founding.”

She said Haiti and Syria continue to face dire conditions, driven by natural disasters, civil unrest, rampant gang violence, and the collapse of governmental institutions.

In a separate statement, the CBC said that “the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Trump administration, allowing it to continue its racist plan” to strip TPS from nearly 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians, subjecting many to deportation “amid Haiti’s extreme humanitarian, political, and economic crises.”

The CBC noted that President Trump has “repeatedly disparaged Haitian communities with misinformation, dehumanizing rhetoric, and racist language.”

In March, a bipartisan majority in the US House of Representatives successfully passed legislation to extend TPS for Haiti through a discharge petition led by Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley.

Given Thursday’s ruling by SCOTUS, CBC urged the US Senate to immediately take up the companion legislation led by Senator Edward Markey and Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester to protect Haitians from “the cruel and callous actions of the Trump administration.”

The CBC assured that it will continue working “in lockstep” with partners and community advocates to ensure that Haitian and Syrian TPS holders are protected.

US Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer described SCOTUS’ ruling as “cruel and inhumane” in turning “its back on more than 300,000 Haitians and thousands of Syrians who have worked and raised families here because they faced violence and instability back home.”

“TPS exists for exactly this reason: to protect people when returning home is unsafe,” he said. “Haiti and Syria remain unsafe today. Instead of showing basic humanity, Donald Trump and this court have chosen fear, chaos, and cruelty.”

Schumer said he has introduced legislation to extend TPS for Haitians, and will keep fighting to protect Haitian and Syrian families from “being forced back into danger.

“America should not turn its back on people who came here seeking safety,” he said.

US House of Representatives Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who represents the 8th Congressional District in New York, with heavy concentration of Caribbean immigrants in Brooklyn and Queens, said that SCOTUS has “recklessly rubber-stamped the Trump administration’s crusade to rip legal status from hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian TPS holders, forcing them to return to a dangerous and deeply unstable environment where they know people are at risk.”

“TPS holders from Haiti and Syria are our hardworking neighbors actively contributing to our communities, supporting our small businesses and filling critical labor needs,” he said. “This decision harms them, their families and the communities all across America that rely on their participation in the healthcare workforce and beyond.

Over the objection of Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, Jeffries noted that Democrats in the US House of Representatives passed legislation in April to extend TPS for Haitians and “protect our communities from the inhumane and unacceptable policies of this out-of-control administration.”

He urged the US Senate to immediately move Representative Laura Gillen’s bipartisan bill in response to Thursday’s “reckless Supreme Court decision.”

New York City Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani said that the US Supreme Court “just sparked one of the largest attacks on immigrants in modern American history.

“In one fell swoop, thousands of Haitians and Syrians now risk losing the right to live and work in the country they call home,” he said. “These are people who fled earthquakes, famine, war and political violence. People who came to this country looking for freedom, safety and democracy. They built lives here. They raised families here. They opened small businesses, attended church and mosque, looked after their neighbors. America is home.”

Mamdani warned that the court’s decision will cause “enormous pain” across the five boroughs of New York City.

“Here in New York, it falls hardest on our Haitian community, one of the largest in the country, alongside Syrian families,” he said. “To the tens of thousands of New Yorkers with TPS who are watching the news, frightened about what comes next, hear me clearly: New York City is your home. You belong here. We will not turn our backs on you.

Stating that TPS was created to protect immigrants from countries suffering armed conflict and humanitarian crises, New York Attorney General Letitia James said the US Supreme Court’s ruling is “a betrayal of our values and of the promise our country made to protect people from displacement, repression, and harm.”

She said her office will continue to stand with Haitians and other immigrant communities and “fight for the people who came to this country seeking safety and helped build our state and nation in return.”

James led several amicus briefs opposing the termination of TPS for Haiti, including briefs filed with the Supreme Court.

On Thursday afternoon, New York State Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, who chairs the Brooklyn Democratic Party, joined Mayor Mamdani, Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York Attorney General James, and New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, the son of Grenadian immigrants, among other elected officials, at a massive rally in lower Manhattan following the “heinous ruling” of the US Supreme Court in Mullin v. Doe.

Bichotte Hermelyn, who represents the 42nd Assembly District in Brooklyn, said the court’s ruling “cleared the way for the federal government to strip TPS from roughly 350,000 Haitian nationals and 6,000 Syrian nationals.

“Let me be entirely clear: this court did not find that Haiti or Syria is safe. They simply chose to lock the courthouse doors and hand the federal administration a blank check to upend the lives of over 350,000 individuals who have followed every single rule,” Bichotte Hermelyn said. “Today, we send a clear, united message: our immigrant workforce is here to stay.

“To our vibrant Haitian community and all TPS holders in my district: you are not alone, and this fight is far from over,” she added, stating that her office is “actively coordinating with our federal representatives, legal advocacy groups, and local partners to push for immediate legislative corrections in Congress and to protect your right to remain safely in the homes you have built.

“We will exhaust every single avenue to correct this injustice,” Bichotte Hermelyn vowed.

Roxanna Rivera, assistant to the president of labor union 32BJ SEIU, said at a rally in Manhattan condemning the court’s ruling that, over 98,000 New Yorkers are TPS holders.

“These are people – New Yorkers – who have come to this state to find a better life, people who have been contributing to this state and nation for years, many for decades,” she said. “This action by the Supreme Court puts in jeopardy residents’ basic right to work and have a job.

“It is an attack on the almost 1.6 million workers across our country who hold TPS status today – and on their workplaces,” Rivera added. “We urge the administration to immediately reverse course and restore TPS protections for Haitians, Syrians and others, to keep families together and safe.”

Yvonne Armstrong, president of 1199 SEIU, the nation’s largest healthcare union, said the court’s ruling is “a moral failure that will have devastating consequences for hundreds of thousands of law-abiding families and the neighborhoods in which they live.

“Nursing home residents will lose their aides, homecare clients will lose their caregivers, hospital patients will lose trusted and experienced staff. Innocent children and families will be forced out of communities they have grown up in,” she warned.

“The vilification of immigrants is one of the oldest tricks in the authoritarian playbook,” Armstrong added. “1199 SEIU stands committed to fighting these injustices—which pit working people against each other and harm all of us— and will continue to organize in defense of our families and neighbors, for our constitutional rights, and in solidarity with immigrant communities.”

Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella organization of over 200 immigrant and refugee groups in New York, said: “The Supreme Court has again allowed the Trump administration to violate the law, now and in the future, when trying to end Temporary Protected Status.

“The racial animus was clear, and clearly documented by the court’s dissenting justices,” he added. “Our Haitian and Syrian neighbors with TPS face imminent loss of status, and this decision weakens protections for 1.3 million TPS holders from all countries nationally.

“Parents will be separated from their children, longtime residents will lose the livelihoods they have spent years building, and people who have contributed to this country for decades will be forced back to dangerous and unstable conditions,” Awawdeh cautioned.

“Our nation’s executive and judicial branches have chosen cruelty,” he said. “Today’s decision undermines both our obligations to those fleeing for their lives and undermines the safeguards Congress established to protect them. Congress has the ability to undo this decision, and it must act.”

Aline Gue, executive director of Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, said that, “Haitian immigrants have been part of the fabric of this country… Ending TPS and intentionally putting entire communities in harm’s way demonstrates just how morally bankrupt and profoundly cruel this administration and all those upholding their policies are.”

Assemblymember Souffrant Forrest, the Haitian-American chair of the Task Force on New Americans (TFNA), said: “As the daughter of Haitian immigrants, I stand with our neighbors who will pay the price of this decision.

“We must defend humanitarian protections, not eliminate them altogether,” she said.

Siomara Umana, supervising immigration attorney at Make the Road New York, another immigrant advocacy group, said the court’s decision is “a devastating blow to the 1.3 million mothers, fathers, neighbors, coworkers, and friends living with Temporary Protected Status who have made their lives in this country.”

Guerline Jozef, executive director of the San Diego-California-based Haitian Bridge Alliance, said the US Supreme Court’s ruling “slammed the courthouse door on judicial review for most TPS terminations, but it did not erase the truth. That fight moves forward.”