The Supreme Court ruled on June 25, 2026 in Mullin v. Doe on whether immigrants facing deportation had the legal right to challenge the Trump administration's decision to end Temporary Protected Status for Syrian nationals. The decision is part of a larger set of court cases reshaping what the law allows when the government terminates TPS — a federal program that protects certain immigrants from deportation.

Two other TPS cases are moving through the courts on parallel tracks. The Court already ruled in Noem v. National TPS Alliance on Venezuela's TPS termination. A separate case involving Haiti's TPS status, known as Trump v. Miot, has had a stay application — a request to pause the lower court's decision — pending before the Court since March 2026. Documents filed in the Syria case show that Haiti's situation is being closely followed by legal advocates and people affected by TPS policy.

Temporary Protected Status was created under the Immigration Act of 1990. It grants immigrants from countries experiencing war, natural disasters, or other serious crises both protection from deportation and the right to work legally. The program currently covers hundreds of thousands of people, according to Reuters. The Trump administration has moved to end TPS for nationals of multiple countries. It terminated Somalia's TPS designation in January 2026 and announced further terminations the following month.

The Administration's Legal Position

The administration argued that the executive branch — the department handling immigration — has broad power over TPS decisions that courts cannot second-guess. Lower courts disagreed, ruling that people facing deportation do have standing to challenge terminations in court and that the administration must follow the Administrative Procedure Act, a law requiring agencies to act reasonably and with proper process. Before the Supreme Court, the administration maintained that federal judges should not review TPS termination decisions — a position based on the statute giving the Secretary of Homeland Security substantial authority over designations.

This approach started on the first day of the second Trump term. A January 20, 2025 presidential directive instructed federal agencies to enforce immigration law as written and to treat previous administrative protections as non-binding. TPS terminations for multiple countries followed over the subsequent months.

The Department of Homeland Security announced a court victory on TPS terminations in February 2026, signaling confidence before the Supreme Court term. The Mullin decision and the Court's Venezuela ruling represent the first time the Court has directly decided these terminations rather than managing them through temporary holds on lower court orders.

What Multiple Cases Tell Us

The Haiti case remains pending, with Ohio's Attorney General filing a brief backing the government's position — a move showing the alignment of state-level officials with federal immigration enforcement. This reflects a pattern of state officials supporting the administration's legal strategy in federal court.

Three TPS cases now give the Court a chance to set limits on how much power the executive branch holds over humanitarian immigration programs. The core legal question is the same across all three: whether TPS terminations are subject to court review and, if so, by what standard. Lower courts applying a test called arbitrary-and-capricious review found the terminations legally flawed. How the Supreme Court's reasoning in Mullin and Noem applies to the remaining cases — and to Haiti specifically — will be closely watched by immigration lawyers and advocates.

The standing analysis in the Syria case — whether respondents have the right to sue at all — sets a threshold question. The June 25 ruling provides the clearest signal yet of where the Supreme Court has drawn that legal line. What the Court decides about standing in Syria will shape whether people from other countries can bring similar challenges.