The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on June 25, 2026, in Mullin v. Doe (case 25-1083) that the Trump administration has the authority to cancel Temporary Protected Status designations — a decision affecting more than 350,000 people, according to The Guardian. The central question before the Court was whether respondents held standing to challenge the termination of TPS for nationals from Syria. The majority held they did not, effectively foreclosing the principal judicial avenue opponents had used to block cancellations.

TPS is a humanitarian designation that allows nationals from countries afflicted by armed conflict, natural disasters, or other extraordinary conditions to live and work legally in the United States on a temporary basis. Crucially, it is not a pathway to permanent residence. The administration had moved aggressively to roll back designations that in some cases had been renewed across multiple administrations for decades, arguing that DHS retains unreviewable discretion over country designations.

A Litigation Campaign Already Well Underway

The ruling lands at the end of a prolonged legal and administrative campaign. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem had already announced the termination of TPS for Venezuela, with that designation expiring September 10, 2025, and for Haiti — with the Haiti designation expiring August 3, 2025, and termination taking effect September 2, 2025, per DHS. Honduras followed, with DHS citing improved country conditions as the statutory basis for that termination. Each move generated immediate litigation in the lower federal courts.

The Supreme Court had been tracking the issue for months before the Mullin decision. In October 2025, the Court issued a decision in Noem v. National TPS Alliance (25A326), which addressed Venezuela's designation. And in March 2026, the Court took up a stay application in Trump v. Miot concerning Haiti — filings showing the Haiti termination had been scheduled to take effect on February 3, 2026. The sequence of emergency applications and stays signaled that the justices would eventually need to resolve the underlying merits, which Mullin now does.

Not every front fell the same way. In April 2026, a federal judge ruled that the administration could not terminate TPS for roughly 5,000 Ethiopians, a decision covering a far smaller population and resting on procedural grounds that may now be vulnerable to the Mullin framework. That case had not yet reached the Supreme Court when the Mullin majority issued its opinion.

What the Ruling Does — and Doesn't — Settle

The 6-3 split tracks the Court's familiar ideological divide. The majority's conclusion on standing means courts may not second-guess individual terminations at the behest of affected nationals — a structural holding with reach beyond Syria. It does not, at least on its face, strip Congress of the ability to redesignate countries or legislate TPS protections directly, though the current legislative arithmetic makes either path unlikely.

DHS issued a statement on June 25 citing multiple Supreme Court wins, placing Mullin alongside other favorable rulings as validation of the administration's immigration enforcement posture.

The practical weight falls unevenly. The 350,000 figure cited by The Guardian represents people who built lives — mortgages, U.S.-citizen children, small businesses — under a status that was repeatedly renewed before the current administration took office. For immigration practitioners, the immediate operational question is timing: how quickly DHS moves to issue final termination notices, whether any case-by-case humanitarian parole authority gets deployed at scale, and whether affected nationals with pending adjustment applications or other relief pathways can stabilize their status before removal proceedings begin.

The dissent's reasoning — which will matter to any future Congress or administration seeking to revive TPS on a broader statutory footing — remains to be fully digested by the immigration bar. What Mullin has done is remove the most durable legal brake on executive TPS terminations. The administrative machinery, not the courts, now sets the pace.